Betting sites that stream live sport are starting to compete more directly with coverage on TV, a leading industry figure has said, potentially reshaping future deals for media rights.

Sometimes, live streams on gambling sites can be better than traditional broadcasts, contended Peter Hutton, CEO of sports rights company MP & Silva.

“You have more options,” Hutton said, speaking at last week’s Casbaa conference in Hong Kong.

“It’s longer form, there are no ads, and you have the data around it that comes with betting. It’s a very good viewing experience.”

Within the space of a few years, selling OTT rights to gambling sites has become a major source of revenue for sports federations.

For some tennis events, such as the ATP World Tour 250 Series or the WTA Tour, betting income now rivals TV income, Hutton noted. “That’s a huge switch that’s happened in two to three years,” he said.

Where available, this emerging distribution channel can help under-exposed sports tap funding and broaden exposure.

In Australia for example, Perform, a digital sports rights specialist, monetizes online distribution for the National Basketball League, which only has two games shown on TV, through pay-per-view and gambling sites.

“Without the betting money, we wouldn’t be able to afford the production,” said James Rushton, Perform’s Asia-Pacific MD, another panelist at Casbaa.

Keeping cannibalization at bay

Perform limits the resolution and window size of online broadcasts it sells to gambling sites, to prevent cannibalization. At the same time, bookmakers restrict live streams to people who have signed up and deposited money on their sites.

Improved online services in general could lower the value of properties acquired by broadcasters however, impacting future negotiations. Fox Sports, for example, excludes betting in most of its rights deals.

“If the gambling sites become an alternative method to view sport in our exclusive areas, then we will have to address it,” commented the network’s head of programming and acquisitions for APAC and the Middle East, Craig Dobbs.

“If it’s in a quarter of the screen at low quality, we understand it’s a means to an end for the gambling fraternity,” Dobbs added.

“If they start to make it a bigger screen or better quality, then we would probably have to relook at that when we buy the rights, whether we allow them to carve out gambling rights.”

That battle for eyeballs is happening now, Hutton suggested.

“Some of the betting screens, and not the Perform ones, are full screen,” he said. “They are a better way of experiencing sport than going to a conventional broadcast.”