👉 Background: The AFL has been the most popular sport in Australia since way back in the early 1900s. Today, AFL is the most popular game in town largely due to its number of fans, crowd sizes and of course the $4.5 billion broadcast deal.

‍👉 What happened: While the broadcast rights are the AFL’s biggest money-spinner, the AFL has developed another lucrative revenue stream over the past decade by partnering with a range of bookmakers. We're talking Tabcorp, Sportsbet, Ladbrokes and Neds. In fact, it’s believed that the AFL makes up to $40 million in revenue from bookies each year.

‍👉 What else: Now, the AFL isn’t content sitting it in the back pocket - it wants to play in the midfield.They’re looking for a bigger slice of revenue from AFL games. This would make it closer to the deal that the NRL struck with bookies through “product fees”.

What's the key learning?

💡Product fees, also known as “integrity fees”, are a fancy term for the way sporting leagues generate revenue from bookmakers. This arrangement is common across major sports and bookmakers - like the AFL, NRL, Australian Open and A-League.

💡These fees are based on a percentage of a bookmaker’s turnover or total revenue — whichever of the two figures is higher. For example, the AFL is currently believed to earn 0.9% of bookie turnover from betting on AFL games. But they want to increase this to 1.5% of turnover in the next deal.

💡If the AFL gets its way, this new deal could see its revenue from bookies jump from $40 million to over $50 million a year.