MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Shift from Display Ads to Affiliate Revenue in Sports Media

For most of the 2010s, sports websites made money in the same way as everyone else online. They put banners on the page, sold ad space, and got paid when people saw the ads. If there was traffic, the bills got paid. What readers did after they got to the page didn't matter.

That model has been falling apart for some time.

Spending on sports media is going down. Readers scroll past banners without seeing them. Ad blockers stop many people from seeing the ads. More sports sites are competing for the same ad budgets, which pushes prices down even further.

At the same time, something else has been growing. Affiliate marketing, where sites earn money when readers sign up using a special link, is now a way for sports outlets of all sizes to make money. Fan blogs and big editorial rooms. The move is already underway.

The display ad problem

Adverts on the website did not suddenly stop working. The numbers just kept getting worse, year after year. Many publishers only reacted when things got really bad.

Banners only pay when they are viewed. If 1,000 people see the ad, the site owner gets a set fee. The rate depends on the niche, the traffic source, and how many other sites are selling the same space. In sports, that rate has been under pressure for years.

One reason is supply. More sports websites exist now than in 2018 or 2019. More sites mean more inventory. Having more inventory means advertisers can pay less.

It's partly because of a bad habit. People have learned to ignore banners. Researchers call this banner blindness. It's still here.

Then there are ad blockers. The exact number varies by survey, but around a quarter to a third of web users have one installed. The publisher doesn't get paid for that traffic.

Adverts on websites still make money. They are not useless. But because they're the main way the sports site makes money, they put publishers at greater risk every year.

Why affiliate revenue fits sports media

Affiliate marketing works differently. Advertisers pay for results, not for views. A reader clicks on a link, signs up at a sportsbook, and makes a deposit. This means the publisher gets a commission. If you don't take action, you won't get paid.

That fits well with sports content. A football site already brings people who care about the game together. Some of them bet. If the site mentions a sportsbook in a match preview or a betting guide, the link is inside the piece the reader came for. It doesn't feel like an interruption, like a banner would.

The money looks different too:

- A display ad costs the same whether the person reading it is a casual reader or a serious bettor.

- You don't earn money from an affiliate link until someone clicks on it. But one person signing up is worth more than thousands of banner views.

- With RevShare deals, the site keeps earning money while the player stays active. One good recommendation can pay for months.

This is a big reason why the change has got faster. A banner impression is one time only. A RevShare referral is a link between the content and the player that lasts forever.

But there is one condition. The audience has to trust the site.

A banner is a type of advertisement. Readers accept it the same way they accept adverts on TV. A review with a tracked link is different. People need to be able to trust that the recommendation is honest. If you promote brands that pay well, readers will notice. They stop clicking. Then they stop coming back.

Some publishers found this out the hard way. They joined every programme they could find, filled pages with links, and pushed books they had never tested. There was less traffic. There weren't enough sales. The company made less money than they thought they would.

The sites that do well choose partners carefully. They review casino affiliate programs that match their audience and test the product before recommending it. They say that a link is an affiliate link if it is clearly marked as such. People will keep visiting your website if you are honest.

What a working strategy looks like

The publishers that make the most money from affiliate sales tend to do the same few things.

The content answers a question the reader already has. Here are some match previews. Odds breakdowns. This is a guide to one feature on a sportsbook. The link makes sense because the article is already about that thing.

They don't try to run twenty programmes at the same time. Two or three that match the audience beat a dozen that don't.

They put the programmes through their paces to see how they measure up. If a book isn't popular, it can still make less money even if the price is higher.

Then they just watch what happens after they click. Sign up. Deposits. How long the player stays. The numbers are more important than the commission percentage.

They mix and match different types of deals. Pay the CPA for cash now. This is a long-term investment. Some programmes offer a mix of both, which works well for sites with steady traffic.

How the two models compare

	Display ads	Affiliate revenue
What triggers payment	Someone sees the ad	Someone signs up, deposits, or bets
How income looks	Steady, but small	Less predictable, higher ceiling
What it depends on	Traffic volume	Audience quality and trust
How it feels for the reader	Banners can slow the page	Links sit inside content they chose to read
Where it is heading	Rates down, blockers up	More programmes, more brand spend
Who decides	The ad network	The publisher

Where the shift is moving fastest

This is not only a UK or US story. Sports media in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia has grown quickly. A lot of newer sites in those regions started with affiliate from day one. They skipped the banner years and went straight to pay-for-results.

Region	Display ads	Affiliate growth	Notes
UK	High demand, crowded	Mature, plenty of programmes	Tight rules. Brand reputation matters
US (legal states)	Strong	Growing as more states open	Compliance changes state by state
Latin America	Lower CPMs	Rising fast	Local and global books both chasing affiliates
Africa	Limited advertiser interest	Early, high potential	Mobile-first. Fewer established programmes
Asia	Mixed by country	Strong in several markets	Language and local payments make or break it

Mobile has sped the change up. Most sports content is read on phones now. Banners on a small screen are even easier to skip than on a desktop. They also slow the page down, and readers leave before the article loads.

Affiliate links work the same on any screen. A text link in a match preview takes no extra space, loads at once, and sends the reader to a signup page built for mobile. For sports media, that audience is almost everyone.

What comes next

The direction is clear. Advertisers want to pay for results. Publishers who can send real players, not just page views, can earn more than display ads have offered in years.

But that doesn't mean every sports website should remove the banners tomorrow. The display can still be used. But publishers that rely only on banners are finding it harder to make a profit. The ones who earn audience trust through affiliate marketing—by being honest and giving decent recommendations—are the ones more likely to still be here in five years.

The change has already happened. The only question left is how quickly the rest of the industry will catch up.