The Government of South Australia has joined forces with Adelaide United as part of its efforts to establish some good practices and role models for promoting sports without advertising sports betting services. The new initiative has come in response to the prevalence of sports betting in the state and will be based on a multi-year partnership between the local government and the A-League soccer club.
The South Australian Government is hoping that its collaboration with the soccer team will help it offset the interest in sports betting and diminish the role that is currently played by this form of gambling in the state.
The announcement follows the official launch of the “Here For The Game” campaign of the local Government and forms an initiative that was specially developed to prevent sports betting from being the main focus of sporting events at the expense of sports themselves. According to the announcement of the South Australian Government, the partnership will last for three years.
As revealed in the statement, the Government of South Australia is set to invest a little less than AU$330,000 in creating a series of advertisements that would become available across all media channels. As mentioned above, the main objective of the campaign is to promote sports, making people remember the fact they can enjoy sports without betting.
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The South Australian Government has added three soccer stars as official ambassadors of the campaign – Stefan Mauk, the captain of the Adelaide United football team, along with one of his teammates, Mohamed Toure, and Chelsie Dawber from the club’s women’s team. The local authorities hope that the three much-loved high-profile stars will help it shift customer focus away from the constantly increasing popularity of sports betting, especially among underage individuals and younger gamblers.
Adelaide United Football Club was chosen for the partnership on purpose, to highlight how important it is to keep sports “clean” from being associated with gambling. The club has recently revealed a decision that it would cut all ties with any brands that are directly linked to the sports betting sector.
Nathan Kosmina, CEO of Adelaide United, explained that the club wanted to see its supporters and local communities focus on the positive involvement that football could have on people’s lives. Mr Kosmina further noted that, currently, young people’s attitudes towards gambling are heavily affected by the gambling promotions of some sporting brands they engage with.
Adelaide United Football Club is not the only sports team in Australia that has backed away from partnering sports betting operators. Two basketball teams in New South Wales (NSW) – the Sydney Uni Flames and the Sydney Kings – have also decided to dispose of their sports betting partnerships and sponsorship deals. The state of NSW has launched an anti-sports betting advertising campaign called “Reclaim the Game” that is pretty similar in style and scope to the one unveiled in South Australia.
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Daniel Williams
