Sports betting, sponsorship is a double-edged sword

There has been discussion in the media recently suggesting that the government will ban advertising by alcohol companies for sports.

The reason for this is cited as being that the ties between sports and alcohol give a legitimacy or endorsement to drinking which, with current concerns about youth alcohol problems and binge drinking, the government wishes to curb.

Personally, I think this is just more of the wowser/nanny state at work, and there are better ways to deal with the problem, but that is a whole other argument.

Of course, this would have a huge effect on sports, when you think about how heavily alcohol companies have become involved in supporting and sponsoring sporting teams and events over the last 10-15 years.

It is probably hard to think of a mainstream sport where a team or event is not sponsored at least in some way by an alcohol company.

As for those that think this would never happen because the disruption and loss of money to support sport, just think back to the ending of cigarette sponsorship of sport (still going on internationally as seen in Formula 1).

This is to a great degree the gap that alcohol companies filled when it ended in the early to mid 1990s.

At this stage, I believe any gap in the sponsorship of sport will be quickly filled by the sports gambling companies, who already beginning to become involved in sponsoring sports. However, this raises a number of issues and concerns which I don’t believe have ever arisen in any other industry sponsoring sport, due to sports gambling’s very nature.

This issue has been touched on to an extent by other Roarers, such as this article but more in the context of specific sports, such as AFL.

The recent debate within AFL about “tanking”, or low ranked teams playing worse to gain better draft picks, has resulted in the new Victorian Commission for Gaming Regulation essentially demanding it be looked into after Demetriou and the AFL Commission apparently did their best Officer Barbrady (from South Park) and said “Move along, nothing to see here”.

Sports betting clearly doesn’t want any suggestions that results might be anything other than fair, or they lose the business when punters refuse to bet on events they can’t assess the merits of properly.

As such, the betting industry is likely to provide a hard task master in seeking and expecting sports to stay fair and transparent.

Their business depends on it.

Ultimately, many will say cash is king. If sports betting can put money into the sports, and they seem to have plenty of it, they’re sport’s new best friend.

Of course, if sports betting can demand fairness and transparency for its stake, one concern that raises its ugly head is what else they might demand.

Nothing heavy weight readily springs to mind, but a few things are demanding injury lists, team lists by certain times, and so forth.

I keep having this vision of Wayne Bennett refusing to announce his final team for a game because a sports betting agent says he has too earlier than he wants to … it’s not too far fetched. I also keep thinking back to them changing the rules in Rollerball in an effort to kill off James Caan’s character, but I am getting a bit off track there.

However, the main concerns that sports betting sponsorship raises in my mind are reciprocity, dependence, and acceptance

Reciprocity is that of putting in what you get out, or at least close to what is fair.

This has already raised its head in horse racing, where interstate sports betting is undercutting the state based TABs and equivalents. Those TABs are required to pay a certain cut back into the racing industry to support that which they live off.

However, the inter-state bookies, usually based in the NT and operating via phone and Internet (and without those pesky overheads like shop fronts), don’t currently have to put anything back into the sports they couldn’t live without.

This is a huge point of conflict, especially for the TABs who are being beaten for options by a less regulted competitor, and also “burdened” in a way the betting agencies aren’t.

As such, arguably sponsorship is the least sports betting agencies can do, if they haven’t already been required to put into each of the sports they allow bets on.

Really, any bet placed on a sport should pay something back into that sport.

Otherwise it amounts to nothing more that parasitism. This requirement seems to be coming, to the extent it isn’t already here, but to my mind should have been sorted out before it was legalised.

Another example of the lawmakers playing catch up with society and technology.

Dependence is what we see with the state governments and their dependence on gambling revenue. In NSW, the tax revenue drawn from poker machines (and gambling generally) has become such a torrent that it would be difficult for it to curb or stop gambling if they wanted to.

They are like an addict who can’t kick the habit. Despite any social ills and costs that gambling might bring the society, governments now find it very hard to give up the vast revenues pouring into their treasuries.

In the same way with sports betting sponsorship and revenue streams from any requirements, sports will almost certainly come to depend on the revenue from gambling to continue operating at a certain level.

When that happens, it becomes very hard to deal properly with an industry you are heavily dependent on, and does sport really want to be in a position where it is weakened in an argument with the gambling industry?

While the gambling industry isn’t John the Bookie fronting up late at night in a Mombai hotel, it must be kept in mind that their prime aim is profit not necessarily the bettering of whichever sport they are taking a punt on.

Acceptance is more of a “fuzzy” issue, involving things like morals and ethics. While some would cry off on these, and try to look at just the economic measure, this is the problem – we can’t look at it in just those terms.

Plus in many ways people like to bang on about how sport is more than just a business, it involves other (fuzzy, non-economical) concepts.

I have a real issue with gambling generally.

I have seen too many people blow vast amounts of money on gambling of all sorts, and ruin their lives. It may not give you lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver, but it is still a damaging addiction for many people.

At the same time, I don’t mind a minor flutter myself, and I can see that it is very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

Gambling is here to stay, and I am not suggesting we go back to the days of illegal SP book makers and so forth.

It is this acceptance which, to my mind, presents one of the greatest threats from sports betting.

By intrinsically linking gambling and sports, it is legitimising what in many ways is a social ill.

When you are watching the NRL or Super 14 or HAL coverage, and they are constantly repeating the odds on the teams, and providing the phone number or web site for their sponsor to out on a punt, what message is this sending?

To the committed problem gambler, who doesn’t need his addiction further endorsed? To the child watching, seeing gambling weaved into being another part of sport (in much the same way as cigarettes and alcohol with current and previous sponsorships).

Sports betting is becoming steadily more intertwined with sports, and there seems little to no discussion about these issues, or what they mean for sport in the short or long term.

The concern is that by the time these discussions are finally had, the Faustian bargain will be well and truly committed to.

I am not suggesting that gambling be banned, that sports betting should not be allowed, or sponsorship of sports betting shuld not be allowed.

However, I question whether what appears to be a current free for all, and sports embracing the new revenue streams, should not have more discussion and consideration.

Otherwise, in 10 to 20 years time we could all be having to face the debate about the government banning sports betting’s sponsorship of sport (or more regulation of betting).

For obvious reasons that will be a far harder issue to wrestle with than cigarettes or alcohol sponsorship being banned, given the intertwining will be well and truly done by then.