I believe lack of national metro reach is a partof the reason, yes.90% of tv advertising is spent on the metro areas. Companies want national reach when they are advertising during a sport.
of course there are other factors: perception of RL as a working class game, less content, sht negotiation skills (and lack of balls) of our leaders, lack of competitive tension at sales time amongst some of them.
in our advantage is: bigger audience, Sydney reach, regional reach and NZ. If we can sort out our failings we should get better tv and sponsorship dels than afl. But given the history of the games administration it’s still a very big IF!