Sportradar AG is a

multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...

with headquarters in St. Gallen,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, that collects and analyzes sports data for bookmakers, national and international sports federations, and media companies. As of 2022, the company has 35 offices in 19 countries around the world, including

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, an ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

, and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. Through its

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...

Sportradar US, Sportradar is the official data provider for NBA, MLB,

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

, ITF, NHL,

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

, and

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs fo ...

. At the end of 2015, Sportradar renewed the partnership with the

International Tennis Federation The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. As of 2016, there ...

as their official data collection service partner. In 2016, Sportradar entered into a partnership with the NBA. In January 2021, the company announced that former Fiserv CEO Jeff Yabuki as Sportradar's new chairman. In March 2021, ''

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

'' reported that Sportradar was in talks to go public via a SPAC, Horizon Acquisition Corp II.

History

Sportradar started as a software program that extracted betting odds from sports betting companies on the Internet. The program was developed by two Norwegians, Petter Fornass and Tore Steinkjer, who formed the company Market Monitor AS in 2001. Carsten Koerl was a major investor, buying 51% of the company's stock. In 2012, Sportradar merged with Kilka. That same year, private equity firm EQT invested in Sportradar. In 2013, Sportradar made several acquisitions, including Attainment GmbH and Venatrack Ltd. In September 2014, Sportradar became a 40% shareholder of NSoft, a software company from Bosnia and Herzegovina that offers an omnichannel betting solution for betting and gambling operators. That same year, EQT's Expansion Capital Fund II reinvested in Sportradar by selling its minority stake in the company to its flagship fund, EQT VI. In 2015, Sportradar obtained distribution rights for

, NFL, and NHL. The same year, Revolution LLC led investments in the company from

Michael Jordan Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the g ...

and

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...

. NFL also acquired

equity Equity may refer to: Finance, accounting and ownership *Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them ** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business ** Home equity, the diff ...

in Sportradar US as part of the partnership. In 2016, Sportradar acquired Sportman Media Holding, including Laola1. Later that year, the NBA announced a multi-year partnership with Sportradar involving integrity services, data distribution and video streaming.

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 Ladbrokes Coral is a British gambling company founded in 1886. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK and International. UK operations a ...

. The Sportradar services are also used by state lotteries such as

Veikkaus Veikkaus Oy is the Finnish government-owned betting agency which holds a monopoly in the country. It was formed in 2017 as a merger of three previously existing betting and gambling agencies of Veikkaus, Fintoto and Finland's Slot Machine Ass ...

, Svenska Spel and Norsk Tipping. Sportradar creates

odds Odds provide a measure of the likelihood of a particular outcome. They are calculated as the ratio of the number of events that produce that outcome to the number that do not. Odds are commonly used in gambling and statistics. Odds also have ...

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 for which the bookmakers are unable to create their own odds. Sportradar will also use its integrity services to monitor betting on all NFL games and will have the right to distribute live audio-visual feeds of NFL games to sportsbooks in certain international markets.

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. They have worked with the World Rally Championship and Borussia Dortmund to deliver their B2C OTT platforms. The

K League K League (Hangul: K리그) is South Korea's professional football league. It includes first division K League 1 and second division K League 2. History Until the 1970s, South Korean football operated two major football leagues, the National ...

signed a multi-year deal with Sportradar in late 2019, to extend its international broadcasting. This resulted in coverage reaching a record number of territories during the 2020 season.

Integrity services

Sportradar provides federations and law enforcement agencies with a system for detecting betting-related

match fixing In organized sports, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a match with the intention of achieving a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, ...

. These services are operated by Sportradar's Security Services division. Initial services included an Early Warning System developed in 2005 following the Hoyzer scandal. The use of this system was one of the measures Bundeslinga took for preventing further match-fixing. Later versions included live monitoring, and was relaunched in 2009 as Fraud Detection System (FDS). The development of FDS was done in cooperation with

. 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 The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly ...

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; types ...

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its nam ...

, ESL and IOC. Sportradar has also signed agreements with several law enforcement agencies, including Europol and the

Australian Federal Police The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the national and principal federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government with the unique role of investigating crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth of Australia. ...

. 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. As of 2016, the Fraud Detection System monitors more than 31,000 European football matches per year. Since the launch of the Fraud Detection System, Sportradar has been involved in several match fixing cases, such as the Austrian case including Sanel Kuljić in 2013, the Australian case in 2013,, and the Nepal scandal in 2015,. The system has indicated that since 2009, more than 2,000 events have likely been manipulated. Sportradar launched its Intelligence & Investigation Services (I&I) in 2013. In November 2020, Sportradar announced extending its I&I capabilities to specifically supporting more US clients.

Federation partnerships

Sportradar has partnered with several sports federations to collect or distribute sports data, including Handball-Bundesliga and the ITF. 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).

References