Opinion piece written by Kerry Walters 05 June 2026.

Wanted to raise an issue that is needing lobbying and addressing with regards the ability for regional advertisers  to access premium sporting events .

Case at point ,and I get the commercial reasons ,is that a regional buyer cannot advertise in SBS World Cup 2026 on their BVOD signal (SBS is exclusive broadcaster) unless they are prepared to buy the whole state as a minimum .

So lets say someone in Tamworth/New England wanted to advertise on the BVOD signal (digital) and geofence the coverage just to their immediate area .Bottom line they can't .Not because it technolgy cant be done , as it can ,but by restricting 2 things .

#Min. area buy per state so regional guys need to buy metro and regional #Min. spend of plus $10K  to access any buy .  $10K is a huge share of available investment/budget particularly for a 1 medium buy .            +

So SBS have partners we can buy BVOD airtime through on what is called a "programmatic" buy.Again unless you of your agency meets the min. buy on that platform they are not interested in giving you any inventory .

EG Trade Desk requires individual advertisers or agents to spend Plus $1M p.a. with them .

Yahoo is a similar spend .

So that leaves just the big advertisers and agents to play in this arena .

Now that sport licencing is relaxed on the need for Free To Air options , this example excludes regional advertisers .

Just waiting to see how telecast and advertising access will roll out for say AFL and NRL Tv rights renewals.

So with channel 9 now selling out their regional ownership of Tv to WIN TV, they have gathered a warchest which they are prioritising metro markets over regional .dropping Rasdio and investing heavily in metro TV options and now outdoor metrocentric with their ownership of QMS outdoor .Which its asetts are predominantly metro.

Example is if you follow a particular regional NRL Footy team(Cowboys/Knights/Canberra/even Gold Coast) ,chances are that more of their games are now exclusive to FOX/KAYO paid subscription not 9 or 9NOW digital  Free To Air .

Meaning if you follow say a metro team chances are you get more Free To Air games and options .

What happens should say  Netflix wins a major sporting code rights, or 9 choose to add Stan (their paid subscription option ) for some games .

Again I know that as tendering for these rights soar above $4Billion, that investors need to recoup their ROI.

But at a time when cost of living is a big problem ,those on a lower disposible income may simply miss out .

More to come .