Completing the Quad: NHL Deal Give Sportradar Partnership With All North American Leagues

Sports betting data firm Sportradar can never be accused of not covering all of the bases. The sports data intelligence provider has ensured that it will be a major factor in the US legal sports betting industry going forward, with its deal for distribution rights for the NHL. The latest deal gives Sportradar access to data for all four of North America's major sports including the NFL who began its partnership with Sportradar last August.

Sportradar builds on a relationship they have had with the NHL since 2015. The evolution of the relationship will allow Sportradar to now sell collected data to brick-and-mortar as well as online gambling providers in the legal betting space.

The Deal

The deal makes Sportradar the exclusive distributor and purveyor of league data to be used for sports wagering operations, thanks to them coming out on top of a competitive auction. Sportradar now has access to all NHL data including goals assists to advanced statistics such as skating speed and hardest shot.

With sports and sports betting becoming increasingly data-driven, Sportradar gets a chance to sell that valuable data to sports wagering companies so they can better inform bettors and make their wagering platforms more attractive. And now Sportradar has exclusive rights to do so in all four major US sports for at least 10 years.

The data, starting this NHL season comes from micro-chips in pucks and players' shoulder pads among other things, in order to create information for almost every aspect of the game. One thousand data points per second are being created in every NHL contest.

The Future of Sportradar

According to reports, Sportradar's recent success in securing partnerships with the "Big 4" in North American sports has the firm thinking about going public in the not-too-distant future. It is said to involve a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in a reverse takeover, similar to the one already accomplished by one of the biggest DFS providers in the world.

Locking up the NHL and having all four major US sports on board makes Sportradar a little more valuable and rightfully gives them unquestioned status as the dominant player in their space before they are taken public. Undoubtedly, the $2.4 billion evaluation it was given in 2018 has swelled substantially as the company heads toward a public offering.

Timing May Be Everything

Other companies like Sportradar have gone public with good results. None had official ties Sportradar does with all four major leagues in the US – NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL. It seems that everybody wants in on the exploding US legal betting scene and Sportradar has put themselves in a terrific position to take full advantage.

The sports betting market in the US is gaining a lot of steam as we head into the start of another NFL season. Three of four major North American sports are going full throttle, and the wagering market is flooded with bankable, marketable daily action. The product that Sportradar controls is in as high a demand as ever as more states legalize sports betting and gamblers get more sophisticated prior to their bets.

In the End

Once the US market reaches its full maturity and all states climb on board with their own legal sports betting platform, the NHL, according to the American Gaming Association and Nielsen, in a study conducted in 2018, could see more than $216 million per year in added revenue due to sports gambling.

Those figures are reliant on increased fan engagement which Sportsradar hopes to be a major contributor of. Sportsradar needs sports leagues to drive their product and sports betting operators need Sportsradar to maximize the product they deliver to their customers.

Data collection, sports leagues, and sports betting operators continue to work hand-in-hand and with the arrow pointing way up on the sports betting industry. The relationship between the three will only be cemented going forward. Sportradar’s value is high, but only figures to grow as the legal sports betting industry swells in the US.