This text is taken from Courrier de l’économie. Click here to subscribe.
Sports television is addicted to live betting. In a context where television as a whole is losing viewers who prefer digital platforms, this is doubly worrying for the future of television, and even professional sport.
Fans who watch their favorite sporting events on television have noticed that sports betting is taking up more and more space on specialized channels. In Quebec, the two French-language channels have integrated sports betting into their usual programming. We are no longer talking about simple advertising spots: it is part of the broadcast of Montreal Canadiens hockey games, undoubtedly the most lucrative showcase for both RDS (Bell Media) and TVA Sports (TVA-Quebecor Group).
The windfall is attractive to broadcasters. Especially since the adoption by the federal government, in March 2021, of Bill C-218 authorizing sports betting on a single match. Provincial lotteries were previously limited to multi-match betting. Ottawa estimated at $10 billion the value of the black market betting on single matches in Canada. Added to this are 4 billion in bets contracted abroad with legal betting services.
In Quebec, the only legal betting site is that of Loto-Québec, which quickly signed exclusive advertising agreements with Bell and Quebecor to drive foreign sites off the airwaves. Today, the Quebec Crown corporation claims to hold up to 60% of this market. Sites like Bet99, bet365 and other LeoVegas continue to attract bettors from Quebec, but none have more than 1% or 2% of the entire market, we rejoice at Loto-Québec.
We bet it’s going to end badly
The problem is not solved, on the contrary. In North America, online sports betting was worth, in 2021, 60 billion US dollars. That’s 165% more than in 2020, according to Morgan Stanley. This is just the beginning: with a sum wagered totaling 16 billion, double compared to the same event held in 2022, the Super Bowl last February set a new record for online betting on a single game.
Both broadcasters and professional leagues should start asking serious questions, observes Luc Dupont, media specialist and professor of communications at the University of Ottawa. “The risk is not new, he says, but the omnipresence of sports betting ensures that, sooner or later, an event will occur which will make the public lose its naivety and which will make it fear that the matches may be rigged…” In another era, that explained the fear for the North American leagues to have a presence in Las Vegas, he continues. “The closer we got to it, the closer we got to sports betting, and even organized crime. »
The argument is clearly out of fashion. Games of chance are no longer exclusive to casinos, the Internet obliges. Las Vegas has become a family destination. The big casinos all have huge rooms where dozens of giant screens broadcast all the live sports matches at the same time and where the tables are equipped with devices allowing you to bet instantly on anything and everything.
With the Internet, sports enthusiasts can recreate the experience without leaving their living room. Broadcasters are benefiting, but the day is not far off when digital platforms will want to recoup the pot. After all, what could be more natural for digital sports betting platforms than to partner with broadcasting platforms that are also digital…
The leagues also derive income from online betting, recalls Luc Dupont. This makes broadcasters less necessary in their business model. This is certainly one more element that could accelerate the decline of traditional television in general and sports channels in particular.
Do you wager?