If you are wagering on professional football at online sports betting sites, odds are you’ve come into contact with Genius Sports, even if you weren’t aware.
The London-based data and technology company has, in the course of a few weeks, secured a significant position for itself in the world of legal sports betting. As a result, wagering on the Canadian Football League (CFL), National Football League (NFL), and English Premier League (EPL) has and will, for the foreseeable future, rely in part on the services of Genius Sports Ltd.
On Thursday, the NFL and Genius announced what is essentially a three-year extension of their partnership, giving the latter the ongoing and exclusive right to distribute the league’s live data to media companies and sportsbooks through to the end of the 2027-28 season. That data can be used to create betting markets, update odds, and settle wagers in a timely fashion, Genius says.
“The expansion of this partnership follows the successful launch and integration of official NFL data throughout the sports betting, media and broadcast ecosystem, redefining the way fans engage with the NFL,” the company said in a press release. “Today, Genius Sports powers over 98% of the legalized U.S. sports betting market with official NFL data, driving innovations such as player props, micro-betting, same-game parlays and personalized data-driven advertising content.”
We could see more online sportsbooks in the U.S. streaming live NFL games during the coming season, as the league and data/tech company Genius Sports announced today they've extended their partnership through the end of the 2027-28 season:https://t.co/jQdfDcGlDP pic.twitter.com/yBra4Oj1rN
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 6, 2023
Investors smiled at the announcement. Shares of Genius shot up during trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, rising more than 25% in value to close at $7.30 apiece. The stock price was up again on Friday, albeit around 2.8% as of midday.
Renewing the NFL deal was essentially the “largest overhang” deterring investors from buying the stock, according to Charles Scherr, vice president of capital markets and strategic initiatives for Genius, in an interview with Covers. A recurring question for Genius from prospective investors was how the company would ensure a renewal of the NFL deal, and on favorable terms.
“And our answer to them, which I think we very much validated today, is that it's always going to be technology-driven,” Scherr said on Thursday. “It's always going to be about the relationships that we have in the NFL’s ecosystem with not only their sportsbooks but also their teams and their sponsors and their broadcast partners.”
Same name, different sport
Starting this season, Genius can sell additional U.S. sportsbooks on its “Watch & Bet low latency live game video feeds,” allowing bettors to log into an app or site and wager on NFL games they can then view through the same operator. Genius began testing out the feature last year with Caesars Sportsbook — and provides it to sites outside the U.S. — but its new deal with the NFL frees it up to expand to other operators in the U.S.
“Watch & Bet has proven to be a really significant tool for operators to drive further engagement in and around the NFL,” Scherr said. “And that's exactly what we want to happen. That's what the NFL wants to happen.”
The new NFL deal for Genius comes a few short weeks after the company extended a similar agreement with the data rights holder of football (also known as soccer) in the United Kingdom. Genius will now be the exclusive distributor of low-latency official data for the EPL, English Football League, and Scottish Professional Football League matches to regulated sportsbooks until the end of the 2024-2025 season.
“In mature markets such as the United Kingdom, major sportsbooks have historically reported that in-game betting currently represents the majority of Gross Gaming Revenue (‘GGR’), which represents the difference between the amount of money players wager and the amount that they win, making it a critical offering for all major sportsbooks,” the company noted in its latest annual report. “In-game betting typically increases in popularity as markets mature, and it is expected that the United States will follow suit.”
An investor itself
Genius has acquired official data or streaming rights agreements for thousands of events a year, and not just for football, as it has deals with Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. While it faces competition from the likes of Sportradar and others, the sportsbook customers for Genius include bet365, DraftKings, and FanDuel.
The NFL is also one of the largest investors in Genius, with ownership equal to approximately 7.2% of the company’s outstanding shares, according to its latest annual report. While Scherr said the expanded deal with Genius does not include additional equity for the NFL, the league still has warrants it could exercise to give it more shares.
“Additionally, Genius may opportunistically seek to make minority investments in sports leagues that benefit from Genius’s full suite of services and broad distribution network,” the company’s annual report noted. “The Canadian Football League (‘CFL’) was an early example of this in January 2022.”
Tracking tech
The deal with the CFL handed Genius the exclusive rights to commercialize the league’s data around the world, similar to its arrangements with the EPL and NFL. In return, Genius received a minority stake in CFL Ventures, a new company that holds the commercial assets of the league. Genius realized a $3.4-million gain because of its investment in CFL Ventures during the year ended December 31, the annual report noted.
And there are other components to the deal Genius has with English football. Notably, the company is also allowed to deploy its "Second Spectrum" technology to provide unique stats in a unique way to broadcasters.
“This tracking technology... powers alternative broadcast experiences that combine live game streams with augmented data points, data visualizations and graphics,” the annual report stated.
