Racing Victoria believes that a broadcast rights deal with Seven West Media can be at least as lucrative as a contract with Tabcorp's Sky Racing and that it can "survive Tabcorp turning off Victorian horse racing vision on Sky" from Monday, according to Stensholt & Bartley of THE AGE. Internal fiscal modeling prepared by Racing Victoria showed it "making a net profit of several million dollars in the first year of a mooted deal with Seven on the broadcast deal alone," from about A$16M ($12.4M) of revenue, including advertising on a new racing free-to-air channel and income from corporate bookmakers paying to show racing vision on their websites. There would be about A$12M ($9.3M) in costs associated with the move, including a "substantial amount in production" for a new Seven free-to-air channel that "will carry Racing Victoria's racing.com brand." The modeling is for domestic broadcast rights only, for which Tabcorp is understood to have "offered the racing authority" about A$16M, as part of a package including digital and int'l rights that could be worth A$20M ($15.5M) to A$25M ($19.4M). Racing Victoria, which is set to "announce a bumper 2015 financial year profit" of more than A$15 ($11.6M), also believes that it "has enough fiscal strength, coupled with the Seven deal, to survive for at least a short period of time without vision on Tabcorp's Sky." Racing Victoria Chair David Moodie said, "It is unfortunate it has got to this. I would like to think this can be avoided as it is not in anyone's best interests" (THE AGE, 6/10).
