Gambling companies, be gone! - By Mary

For Eels fans out there it has certainly been an extremely difficult season. We have seen many players leave the Club, had power struggles in the board room, seen the coming and going of CEO's, lost a coach and to top it all off, had difficulty for months trying to secure a new sponsorship deal after our long term sponsor Pirtek decided to call it a day.

Last week the Parramatta Eels announced a new sponsorship deal. Two new sponsors have been announced for next year.

Dyldam has been a corporate sponsor of the Eels since 1998 and will now become the Club's major sponsor from 2014. Dyldam will continue to have sponsorship on the jersey sleeve as well as having the position on the front of the jersey for the next 3 seasons. The second sponsor announced is UNIBET who will feature on the back of the Eels jerseys for the next 2 seasons.

This sponsorship deal is the largest in the history of the Eels. The deal is worth over 1 million dollars a season. Very lucrative for a team who has finished with the wooden spoon for the last 2 seasons.

As a Parramatta Eels fan you would probably be expected to think that I would be tremendously excited (and relieved) following these announcements. While I was certainly concerned that Parramatta's position on the ladder for the last 2 years would mean that we would have difficulty securing sponsorship, I must say I was less than delighted by this announcement. I am putting Dyldam aside for the rest of this post - I welcome their increased involvement with the club and am delighted that they will be on the front of the jersey next year.

My problem comes with UNIBET. You can probably take a guess at what UNIBET is. UNIBET is an online betting agency with 7.6 million customers in more than 100 countries around the world. The Parramatta Eels are not the only sporting club that UNIBET sponsors - it already has a deal with Liverpool Football Club. 

There has been much debate throughout this year about whether gambling companies should be able to sponsor sporting clubs.

We can consider this on two levels.

Firstly, association with the sport as a whole. The NRL is the only major Australian sporting club without an official betting sponsor. However the sport still gets 7.5 per cent of its profits through its affiliation with betting companies. 

Related to this are the majority of clubs who have some sort of a sponsorship relationship with a betting agency.

You can probably see where I am going with this - in my opinion, gambling companies should absolutely be prevented from sponsoring sports clubs.

This has been a debate which has popped up at various times through the year.

While a ban would meant that many clubs would lose significant revenue, I think we need to become more creative in finding alternate sources of revenue raising for our sporting teams. 

I understand this is a difficult topic. Sponsorship is absolutely the most secure form of revenue a club can have. Crowds and memberships can vary depending on results and the Eels have certainly seen that this year. I am convinced we can do better though.

As a sport NRL should seek to be the example. We need to show leadership and show that we are serious about making our game the example. The NRL needs to make a decision about whether such strong links with gambling are what they want the game to be about. 

Parents should not feel like they are taking their kids to a casino when they are at the football. It concerns me that children are able to identify betting agencies simply because they love rugby league. 

It also troubles me that the involvement of betting agencies continues, despite  an increased proliferation of betting scandals - not just in NRL, but in all sports. By continuing to allow betting agencies to sponsor our teams, we encourage their involvement with our sport. I remember being particularly troubled when CUA Stadium was renamed Centrebet Stadium, while at the time, a police investigation continued into the gambling scandal involving Ryan Tandy, the Canterbury Bulldogs and North Queensland Cowboys. 

At one point in Australian sporting history we thought that the end of tobacco companies being able to sponsor teams would see catastrophic effects. NRL clubs were banned from receiving sponsorship revenue from tobacco companies in 1192 following the federal government passing legislation which prevented tobacco advertising in Australia. Instead of having catastrophic effects, we have seen teams find other sources of revenue and sponsorship of sport continuing to grow.

I'm waiting for my sport to take charge and take the first steps to stop the dominance of betting agencies in my sport.

Will the NRL and Clubs be brave? Time will tell.

Love,

@LadiesWhoLeague