It could be viewed like that, but it is justified on the grounds that gambling interests, particularly in sport, are always subject to stringent auditing to ensure that there is no undue influence being exerted. Like Crown has to prove that it worthy of holding a casino gaming licence, the ARLC should have to prove to its owners that gambling revenue isn't unduly affecting it's decisions.
To break it down, the media rights for 2023 were supposedly worth $400m which leaves $86m split between Wagering Fees and Merchandise Royalties, that's 3 times the value of the Other Income items declared in the Annual Report. It's a fair chunk of change, so it's not unreasonable to ask for it to be broken down.
That's a tough one, the AFL agreement is 7 years, the NRL agreement is 5 years. So the AFL is locked in with no possibility of an increase for the extra 2 years, whereas the NRL can. The "headline" AFL agreement is substantially more per year but it includes contra deals (free advertising of AFL by the media) plus the Telstra Stadium naming rights. Whereas the NRL agreement is all "cash", no contras and no stadium naming rights. The AFL had 3 x FTA networks bidding for rights which really pumped up the price, and since he AFL deal was announced after the record NRL deal the AFL really had to inflate theirs with anything/everything they could include.
In 2023 "NRL broadcast figures outstripping AFL, with 93.2m viewers tuning into Telstra Premiership matches on Nine and Fox Sports compared to 91m for AFL's free-to-air and pay-tv coverage". Armed with that, plus Vegas and the potential for 3 more teams (taking the comp to 20 teams) the NRL media rights will earn a substantial upgrade, so the short deal term may well pay off big time.
Always a Bulldog