Spent the last month talking to producers, hosts and ad sales people across the Australian sports podcast space. The picture in 2026 is more interesting than the conventional wisdom suggests. Some shows are making genuinely strong money. Others, including some you’d assume are profitable, are struggling more than their public profile would suggest.

Here’s what’s actually working.

The independent footy shows are doing better than the network ones

This is the headline finding and it surprised me. The independent AFL and NRL podcasts (the ones operating outside the Nine, News Corp and SEN umbrellas) are reporting better revenue per listener than their network competitors.

The reason is structural. Independent shows can take direct sponsorship deals across multiple verticals, can sell merchandise without revenue-share obligations, and can run their own membership tiers without negotiating against a network platform. Network shows are limited to programmatic and host-read inventory their network sells, which has lower yields.

A specific example. One independent AFL show I spoke to (won’t name them but they have a big presence in Victoria) is grossing in the high six figures annually with three full-time staff and outsourced production. A comparable network show with similar download numbers grosses substantially less to the on-air talent because the network captures most of the revenue.

This is a significant shift from where the market was in 2022 when network bundling was clearly winning.

Membership is now the core revenue stream for the top tier

Patreon, Substack and Memberful all have meaningful Australian sports podcast presence in 2026. The shows at the top of the pile are getting 8-15% of their regular listeners onto paid tiers at $7-15 per month. For a show with 50,000 weekly downloads, that’s $35-90k per month in membership revenue alone.

This is reshaping how shows are structured. The successful membership models are not “ad-free + bonus episodes.” They are full second feeds with premium-only content (extra mid-week shows, extended player interviews, post-match analysis 30 minutes after the siren). The work is significant but the margins are excellent because you’re not splitting with an ad network or a sales team.

The shows that have not figured out membership are now visibly behind. You can pick them by their over-reliance on betting sponsorship, which is a market under increasing regulatory pressure.

Betting money is drying up

The federal government’s continued tightening on gambling advertising has had a real impact on podcast revenue in 2026. The big betting brands have pulled back significantly on host-read sponsorship in the last 12 months, partly because of regulatory uncertainty and partly because the next round of restrictions (expected to come into force later in 2026) will likely affect podcast advertising more than the previous round.

For shows that were 40-60% reliant on betting sponsorship two years ago, this has been brutal. Several mid-tier shows have either folded or downscaled significantly. Others have pivoted to alcohol, automotive and tech sponsorship at lower rates.

The smart shows started diversifying their sponsor mix in 2024 when the regulatory direction became clear. The ones that didn’t are now in a difficult spot.

Cricket is genuinely undermonetised

The Australian cricket podcast space remains structurally underdeveloped relative to the audience. There are great shows (covered some of these in last week’s roundup) but the commercial infrastructure around them is thinner than equivalent footy shows.

Why? Mostly because cricket sponsorship in Australia tends to be locked up in big seasonal deals through Cricket Australia and the broadcasters, leaving less budget for independent show sponsorship. Also because the cricket audience skews older than the AFL/NRL podcast audience, and the platforms that monetise best (membership, premium feeds) skew younger.

The opportunity here is real for any show that can crack a younger cricket audience. A T20 / BBL focused show with strong production values and a membership model could be a meaningful business. Nobody has built it yet.

The agency money is finally arriving

Programmatic and agency-buy revenue for Australian sports podcasts has improved significantly in the last 18 months. The CPMs that ACAST, Omny and the AustralianPodcastNetwork are reporting through 2025 and into Q1 2026 are up roughly 25% year-on-year.

Part of this is the IAB’s measurement framework improvements finally giving agency buyers the confidence to commit larger budgets to the medium. Part of it is sports podcasts specifically benefiting from the broader retreat of agency money from open-web display, which has been pushed by the same brand safety concerns for years.

The result: shows that previously couldn’t get agency buys are now seeing meaningful revenue from programmatic. For the bigger shows, this is now a third significant revenue stream alongside direct sponsorship and membership.

What’s not working

Live events for podcasts have largely stopped working in 2026. The post-pandemic surge of “podcast tour” events has crashed. Audiences will pay for membership but they won’t pay $80 to sit in a regional theatre and watch their favourite hosts riff for 90 minutes. A handful of the biggest shows can still sell out a Melbourne or Sydney theatre, but the secondary market for podcast tours has collapsed.

Branded content (where a show makes a custom series for a sponsor) has also softened. The brands that were experimenting with this in 2023-2024 have largely gone back to traditional sponsorship because the production costs and editorial complications outweighed the ROI.

What I’d watch for in the next six months

Whether one of the major networks acquires an independent show. The economics of the independent space are getting good enough that someone with capital is going to make a play.

Whether the next round of gambling advertising legislation includes podcasts explicitly. If it does, expect a sharp shakeout in the back half of 2026.

Whether ABC Sport finally launches a serious podcast strategy. They have the talent and the brand. They’ve never had the commercial mandate.

The Australian sports podcast market in 2026 is more mature, more financially serious, and more competitive than at any previous point. Which is why some shows are making genuine money for the first time, and others are quietly going under.