The NFL Expanded Their Partnership With Sportradar
Legalized sports betting continues to propagate within the United States; America’s top sporting league is taking a more moderate approach, however. The NFL already has high television ratings, so their ability to capitalize on gambling is undeniable. Until now, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has purposely kept the league on the outside looking in waiting for all the legalities to sort themselves out.
On August 12th, the NFL announced an expansion of their existing multiyear partnership with data firm Sportradar. The expanded partnership makes Sportradar the exclusive distribution partner of real-time official play-by-play data statistics. The new agreement gives Sportradar the proprietary rights to distribute all the official NFL data to the various legal sports betting operators within the U.S. and abroad. Such a title officially allows Sportradar to distribute official NFL data and content to an enormous fan base both in the U.S. and around the world.
Partnering with America’s top league establishes Sportradar as the data company to work with within the ever-shifting U.S. gambling space.
The league and Sportradar have been working together since 2015 on a different data project. The two entities collaborated to develop the NFL’s Next Gen Stats (NGS) player tracking data that is released to various media groups.
Additionally, Sportradar and the NFL partnered to create Sportradar’s research platform, Radar360. The platform is used by teams, NFL league offices, and various media outlets.
The expanded partnership now allows the official distribution of real-time data to be distributed to legal sports betting operators in the U.S. and internationally.
The NFL will use Sportradar’s integrity services to monitor all betting across NFL games, including preseason, regular season, and postseason. League officials and teams will also have the ability to access Sportradar’s integrity education workshops and products. The focus is the continued growth and standard of excellence within the NFL.
“Sportradar has been an excellent partner for the last four years and has provided the league, our teams, and media marketplace with innovative data products,” stated Hans Schroeder, Executive Vice President, and Chief Operating Officer, NFL Media. “We look forward to working with Sportradar to deliver fast, accurate official league data that will innovate and improve experiences for our fans across platforms. It’s a new world, and it’s a new day as far as the legalized sports-gambling landscape, and our view is, let’s be right. When we actually go to market, we don’t want to worry about being first, we want to be right.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Sportradar had previously signed a similar six-year agreement with the NBA to distribute the same type of data overseas for $250 million. So, experts believe that because of the popularity of the NFL, this deal will be that much more significant.
“We are thrilled to become the NFL’s exclusive data distribution partner, undoubtedly one of the most important partnerships in Sportradar’s history. We are confident we will maximize our strong partnership with the NFL and deliver ground-breaking products across the gaming, fantasy and the media worlds,” stated Carsten Koerl, Chief Executive Officer of Sportradar. “As the unequivocal global leader in sports data, we are ideally positioned to support the NFL in providing innovative products to enhance the way fans experience the game and help maintain the continued integrity of the NFL competition.”
Sports betting has continued to thrive within the U.S. and abroad. It was doubtful the NFL could remain distant forever. Finding the right entry point — Sportradar — was vital to their successful bid into sports betting.
