Sportradar

Sportradar AG is a multinational corporation with headquarters in St. Gallen, Switzerland, that collects and analyzes sports data. Sportradar provides services to bookmakers, national and international sports federations, and media companies. As of November 2020, the company has 35 offices in 24 countries around the world including New York City, Las Vegas, London, Trondheim, Munich, Ljubljana, Sydney and Singapore.

Sportradar AG
FormerlyMarket Monitor AS
TypePrivate
Industry
FoundedAugust 2000 (2000-08) in Trondheim, Norway
Founders
  • Petter Fornæss
  • Tore Steinkjer
  • Carsten Koerl
Headquarters
St. Gallen
,
Switzerland
Number of locations
35 offices in 24 countries (2020)
Key people
  • Carsten Koerl (Group CEO)
  • Alex Gersh (CFO)
  • Ben Burdsall (CTO)
BrandsBetradar
Services
  • Advertising digital services
  • Audio visual distribution
  • Sports results and statistics
  • Managed trading services
  • OTT streaming
  • Odds monitoring and suggestions
  • Integrity services
Owners
  • Carsten Koerl
  • Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB)
  • EQT Partners
  • Revolution Growth
  • TCV
Number of employees
2,200 (2020)
Subsidiaries
  • Mocap Analytics
  • Optima Group
  • Bayes Esports Solutions GMBH
  • Sportradar US
  • Laola1
Websitesportradar.com

Through the US subsidiary, Sportradar US, Sportradar is the official data provider of the US sports federations NFL, NBA,MLB and NASCAR. At the end of 2015 Sportradar renewed the partnership with the International Tennis Federation as their official data collection service partner.[1] In 2016, Sportradar entered into a partnership with the NBA, the third partnership with The Big Four.[2]

In January 2021, It was announced that former Fiserv CEO Jeff Yabuki was Sportradar's new chairman.[3] Yabuki was Fiserv’s CEO from 2005 to 2020, a tenure in which the public company more than tripled its revenue from $3.2 billion to more than $10 billion. He stepped down as CEO in July and agreed to serve as executive chairman through the end of 2020.

History

Sportradar grew out of a software program that crawled the internet to extract betting odds from sports betting companies. The program was developed by two Norwegians, Petter Fornass and Tore Steinkjer, who formed the company Market Monitor AS in 2001.[4] Carsten Koerl was a major investor, buying 51% of the company's stock.[5]

In 2013, the company made several strategic acquisitions, including Attainment GmbH, Venatrack Ltd., and Klika d.o.o.[6]

In September 2014 Sportradar became a shareholder of NSoft, a software company from Bosnia and Herzegovina that offers an omnichannel betting solution for betting and gambling operators. Sportradar holds 40% of NSoft's shares.[7] EQT reinvested in Sportradar in 2014 by EQT's flagship fund buying the shares of EQT's Capital Expansion II.[8]

In 2015, Sportradar obtained exclusive distribution rights for NASCAR, NFL and NHL. The same year, Sportradar attracted investments from Michael Jordan and Mark Cuban led by Revolution LLC.[9] National Football League also acquired equity in Sportradar US as part of the partnership.

In 2016, Sportradar acquired the core business of Sportman Media Holding, including Laola1.[10]

Later that year, the NBA announced a multi-year partnership with Sportradar involving integrity services, data distribution and video streaming.[2]

Sports Betting Services

Through the brand Betradar, Sportradar provides bookmakers with several sports betting services.

As of 2015, Sportradar has partnered with roughly 450 bookmakers including Bet365, William Hill, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes. The Sportradar services are also used by state lotteries such as Veikkaus, Svenska Spel and Norsk Tipping.

Sportradar creates odds for thousands of games across 40 sports. The odds are created by feeding sports data collected by Sportradar into mathematical models. For in-game betting odds, this requires continuous recalculation of the outcomes using the live data that Sportradar collects or acquires through licenses. These odds are sold as odds suggestions to bookmakers for matches the bookmakers are unable to create their own odds for.

Sportradar will also use its integrity services to monitor betting on all NFL games and will have the right to distribute live audiovisual feeds of NFL games to sportsbooks in select international markets.[11]

Audio-Visual, OTT and Broadcast Services

In 2016, Sportradar agreed to a deal to acquire the shares and core business of media agency Sportsman Media Group, expanding their services to include AV, OTT and Broadcast distribution.[12]

They have worked with the World Rally Championship[13] and Borussia Dortmund[14] to deliver their B2C OTT platforms.

The K League signed an exclusive multi-year deal with Sportradar [15] in late that entrusted the company to extend its broadcast and fan reach globally. This saw coverage reach a record number of territories during the 2020 season which was interrupted due to the pandemic.[16]

Integrity Services

Sportradar provides federations and law enforcement agencies with a system for detecting betting related match fixing. These services are operated by Sportradar's Security Services division, with headquarters in London, England.

Sportradar's Integrity Services began with Early Warning System developed in 2005 following the Hoyzer scandal. The use of this system was one of the measures Bundesliga took to prevention further match-fixing. The system was further developed to include live monitoring, and was relaunched in 2009 as Fraud Detection System (FDS).[17]

The development of FDS was done in cooperation with UEFA. Through this partnership, Sportradar monitors suspicious matches in the two top leagues of every UEFA member nation.

FDS has since then expanded its partnerships to other sports and federations, including Asian Football Confederation,CONCACAF, FIBA, ESL[18] and IOC.[19] Sportradar has also signed agreements with several law enforcement agencies, most notably Europol[20] and the Australian Federal Police.

The Fraud Detection System works by comparing odds movement patterns from online bookmakers with the expected odds movement patterns for a given match. When suspicious matches are found, they are analyzed and then reported to the relevant federation. The federation can then start their own investigations.[21] As of 2015, the Fraud Detection System monitors 65 000 matches across 11 sports, half of them in soccer. Daily, the system receives roughly 5 billion odds adjustments from around 450 different bookmakers.[22]

Since the launch of the Fraud Detection System, Sportradar has been involved in several notable match fixing cases, such as the Nepal scandal in 2015,[23] the Austrian case including Sanel Kuljić in 2013, and the Australian match fixing case in 2013. The system has indicated that since 2009, more than 2000 events have likely been manipulated.[22]

The range of services has extended to include Sportradar’s Intelligence & Investigation Services (I&I) which was established in 2013. They are a world leader in providing intelligence and investigation solutions to sporting federations, law enforcement, government agencies, clubs, anti-doping organisations and the gaming industry with the team currently supporting 50+ partners. In November 2020, Sportradar announced extending its I&I capabilities to specifically supporting more US Clients.[24]

Federation partnerships

Sportradar has partnered with several sports federations to collect or distribute sports data. For Handball-Bundesliga Sportradar[25] both collects and distributes official data, while for the ITF, the umpire enters the data directly into the Sportradar systems.[26]

In 2020, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) partnered with Sportradar to support its Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) in monitoring all games that were played in the 2020 season of the India Premier League (IPL).[27]

See also

References
  1. "Tennis Gamblers' Demand for Live Betting Nets ITF Data Deal". Washington Post Business Page. Archived from the original on 2015-12-27.
  2. Heitner, Darren. "The NBA's Six Year, $250 Million Data Deal". Forbes. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
  3. Novy-Williams, Eben. "SPORTRADAR FINDS NEW CHAIRMAN IN FORMER FISERV CEO". www.sportico.com. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
  4. "Student Programming Project becomes Multi-Million Dollar Company". Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  5. "Sikrer gambling-gevinst". Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  6. "Ljubljanska Klika se združuje s švicarskim Sportradarjem". Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  7. https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/2893/nsoft
  8. "EQT Deal Caps Off Strange Month for Exits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  9. "Jordan, Cuban, Leonsis Put Millions on Sports Betting's Future". BloombergBusiness. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
  10. "Sportradar AG acquires core business of the sportsman media holding". Sportman Media Holdings. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  11. Purdum, David (12 August 2019). "NFL data set to be distributed to bookmakers". ESPN.com. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  12. Lloyd, Tom. "Sportradar in major Sportsman acquisition". www.sportspromedia.com. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  13. "Sportradar and World Rally Championship". sportstechgroup.org.
  14. Bassam, Tom. "Partnership in profile: Borussia Dortmund and Sportradar deliver OTT launch lessons". Sports Pro Media. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  15. "K League engages Sportradar in multi-year global media rights deal". www.SportBusiness.com. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  16. "Sportradar brings the K League to record number of territories". yogonet.com. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  17. Forrest, David; McHale, Ian G. (September 2015). "AN EVALUATION OF SPORTRADAR'S FRAUD DETECTION SYSTEM" (PDF). Sports Trading Network.
  18. "Sportrader and ESL Form Partnership". CSGOBetting.com. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  19. "Sportradar, IOC Sign Deal To Share Info About Betting In Olympic Sports". Sports Business Daily. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  20. "Europol and Sportradar join forces to protect sport's integrity". Europol.
  21. "Football match-fixing: How betting gives the game away". BBC News. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  22. "Fixers beware". Gambling Insider. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  23. Baber, Mark. "Police swoop to arrest Nepal national team players in match-fixing investigation - Inside World Football". Inside World Football. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  24. Murphy, Chris. "Sportradar launches intelligence and investigation service for US clients". sbsamericas.com. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  25. Poole, Tim. "DKB Handball Bundesliga and Sportradar Renew Integrity Partnership". www.gamblinginsider.com. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  26. "ITF Official Data Partner".
  27. PTI. "BCCI signs up Sportradar to detect betting irregularities during IPL 2020". www.espncricinfo.com. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
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