Sportradar

Sportradar AG
Formerly called
 Market Monitoring
Private
Industry
Founded August 2000 (2000-08) in Trondheim, Norway
Founders
  • Petter Fornæss
  • Tore Steinkjer
Headquarters St. Gallen, Switzerland
Number of locations
 35 offices in 24 countries (2016)
Key people
Brands Betradar
Services
  • sports integrity
  • odds monitoring and suggestions
  • sports results and statistics
Revenue €130 million (2015)[1]
Owners
Number of employees
 1,300 (2015)
Subsidiaries
Website sportradar.com

Sportradar AG is a multinational corporation with headquarters in St. Gallen, Switzerland, that collects and analyzes sports data. Sportradar provides services to bookmakers, national football associations and international sports associations such as UEFA[2] and IOC.[3] As of January 2016, the company has 35 offices in 24 countries around the world including Trondheim, London and Ljubljana. Sportradar's products includes live results and statistics and white-label sports content solutions. Through the brand Betradar, Sportradar operates a suite of tools for bookmakers, including in-game and pre-match odds suggestions, resulting, market monitoring and trading services.

Through the US subsidiary, Sportradar US, Sportradar is the official data provider of the US sports federations NFL, NHL and NASCAR. At the end of 2015 Sportradar renewed the partnership with the International Tennis Federation as their official data collection service partner.[4] In 2016, Sportradar entered into a partnership with the NBA, the third partnership with The Big Four.[5]

Since 2005, the company has had a partnership with German Football Association to detect fraud and match fixing.[6] This system was later developed and launched as Fraud Detection System.[2] In addition to detection of fraud, Sportradar organizes integrity workshops together with federations such as Major League Soccer,[7] Serie A[8] and International Ice Hockey Federation.[9] These workshops teach clubs and players about how the betting market works, the different forms of match fixing and how match manipulation is detected.[10]

History

Sportradar started as Market Monitor, which was founded in 2000 in Trondheim, Norway, by Petter Fornæss and Tore Steinkjer.[11] Market Monitor provided services for online bookmakers based on crawler technology developed as part of a thesis at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.[11] Market Monitor together with Austrian and German partners, created the product Betradar.com in 2001. Betradar.com provides a set of reporting and monitoring tools for the online betting markets. Carsten Koerl joined Market Monitor as a major investor, obtaining 51% of the shares.[12] In 2007, Sportradar AG was founded by the owners of Market Monitor and served as a parent company for the various companies in the group. Market Monitor was renamed to Sportradar AS and became a subsidiary of Sportradar AG.[13]

In 2012, Sportradar acquired the Slovenian development company Klika.[14] Later the same year EQT acquired a minority stake by investing 44 million Euro in the company.[15] Sportradar's expansions continued in 2013, with Sportradar became the majority shareholder of Usk-based Sportstat. Sportstat was the official data collection partner of http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/wales/87716-sportstat-merges-swiss-business/.[16] In 2013 Sportradar also advanced into the US market by acquiring SportsData (now Sportradar US).[17]

EQT reinvested in Sportradar in 2014 by EQT's flagship fund buying the shares of EQT's Capital Expansion II.[15]

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.[18] 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.at and Laola1.tv.[19] Later that year, NBA announced a multi-year partnership with Sportradar involving integrity services, data distribution and video streaming.[5]

Sport 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 sport 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.[6] The system was further developed to include live monitoring, and was relaunched in 2009 as Fraud Detection System (FDS). The development of FDS was done in cooperation with UEFA.[2] Through this partnership, Sportradar monitors suspicious matches in the two top leagues of every UEFA member nation.[20] FDS has since then expanded its partnerships to other sports and federations, including CONCACAF, FIBA, ESL[21] and IOC.[3] Sportradar has also signed agreements with several law enfocement agencies, most notably Europol[22] and the Australian Federal Police.

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.[23] As of 2015, 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.[20][24]

Since the launch of Fraud Detection System, Sportradar has been involved in several notable match fixing cases, such as the Nepal scandal in 2015,[25] the Austrian case including Sanel Kuljić in 2013, and the Australian match fixing case in 2013.[20] The system has indicated that since 2009, more than 2000 events has likely been manipulated.[24]

In addition, Sportradar provides workshops for clubs and federations to educate them on the consequences of match fixing.

Sports content products

Sportradar provides sports content in various forms to media and bookmakers. The content is either collected by operations employed by Sportradar. Sportradar is a licensed distribution partner with several federations. Some of these partnerships include data collection by Sportradar operations. The solutions Sportradar provides includes white label hosted solutions such as statistics suits and in-game data visualisations, as well as server-to-server APIs and data feeds.

Sportradar's sports distribution covers more than 325 000 sport events and feeds clients like Google and Fox Sports.[26] Sportradar also provides data to Facebook Sports Stadium.[27]

Sports betting services

Through the brand Betradar, Sportradar provides bookmakers with a number of sports betting services. As of 2015, Sportradar has partnered with roughly 450 bookmakers including Bet365, William Hill, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes.[21] The Sportradar services are also used by state lotteries such as Veikkaus, Svenska Spel and Norsk Tipping.

Sportradar create 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.[4] These odds are sold as odds suggestions to bookmakers for matches the bookmakers are unable to create their own odds for.[20] Similarly, Sportradar provides information to bookmakers about when matches start and finish so they do not allow money being placed on matches that are finished.[11] A subset of Sportradar's collected data goes through an extensive quality assurance process specialised for bet clearing.

Sportradar also provides market monitoring, which allows bookmakers to compare their odds with the rest of the market. Bookmakers have to provide their own odds to make use of this service, thus making their own odds a part of the comparison with other bookmakers. This service allows bookmakers to ensure they are not in an unwanted surebet situation.

Federation partnerships

Sportradar has partnered with several sports federations to collect or distribute sports data. For Handball-Bundesliga Sportradar both collects and distributes official data,[28] while for the ITF, the umpire enters the data directly into the Sportradar systems.[29] For NHL, Sportradar ingests and redistributes the data coming from NHL's tracking system.[30] The partnerships with the US federations NASCAR, NHL and NFL are handled through the US subsidiary, Sportradar US, partly in order to avoid conflict of interest between the federation and Sportradar's involvement with the betting industry.

Distribution partnerships can also include creating official web and mobile solutions, as well as the rights to stream video content.[28][29] Partnerships such as the one with ESL include using the data to expand Sportradar's betting services.[21]

Under a deal signed in October 2015, Sportradar will provide The Football Association of Malaysia a platform for managing its federation. Through this platform, the federation will manage such things as schedules, leagues, and personnel such as players and referees. The tool also provides the means for collecting live data that can be distributed to teams and partners, or visualised in various web solutions.[31]

References

  1. ↑ "Sportradar: Unlocking the power of data for the world of sports". EQT.
  2. 1 2 3 "Protecting the game". UEFA. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Sportradar, IOC Sign Deal To Share Info About Betting In Olympic Sports". Sports Business Daily. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Tennis Gamblers' Demand for Live Betting Nets ITF Data Deal". Washington Post Business Page.
  5. 1 2 Heitner, Darren. "The NBA's Six Year, $250 Million Data Deal". Forbes. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Manipulationsverdacht: DFB zeigt Hoyzer an". Spiegel Online. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  7. ↑ "MLS tools up in the war against match fixing with Sportradar extension". Inside World Football. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  8. ↑ "Lega Pro: al terzo tentativo approvato dall'assemblea dei club il bilancio 2013-2014". Repubblica. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  9. ↑ "Match-fixers beware". International Ice Hockey Federation. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  10. ↑ "Do Fantasy Sports Spell The End Of Corruption In Athletics?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
  11. 1 2 3 "Student Programming Project becomes Multi-Million Dollar Company". Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  12. ↑ "Sikrer gambling-gevinst". Retrieved 21 November 2015.
  13. ↑ "Perleporten åpen for Petter Smart". Ukeadressa. Adresseavisen. 8 October 2011.
  14. ↑ "Ljubljanska Klika se združuje s švicarskim Sportradarjem". Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  15. 1 2 "EQT Deal Caps Off Strange Month for Exits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  16. ↑ "SportStat merges with Swiss business". Insider Media Ltd.
  17. ↑ "Swiss company buys St. Paul sports-stats startup SportsData". Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
  18. ↑ "Jordan, Cuban, Leonsis Put Millions on Sports Betting's Future". BloombergBusiness. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
  19. ↑ "Sportradar AG acquires core business of the sportsman media holding". Sportman Media Holdings. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  20. 1 2 3 4 Blickenstaff, Brian. "How to catch a match fixer". Vice Sports. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  21. 1 2 3 "Sportrader and ESL Form Partnership". CSGOBetting.com. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  22. ↑ "Europol and Sportradar join forces to protect sport's integrity". Europol.
  23. ↑ "Football match-fixing: How betting gives the game away". BBC News. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  24. 1 2 "Fixers beware". Gambling Insider. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  25. ↑ Baber, Mark. "Police swoop to arrest Nepal national team players in match-fixing investigation - Inside World Football". Inside World Football. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
  26. ↑ "Ted Leonsis teams with Michael Jordan, Mark Cuban in sports tech investment". The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  27. ↑ Condliffe, Jamie. "Facebook's 'Sports Stadium' Is a Dedicated Place to Talk About the Big Game". Gizmodo. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  28. 1 2 "German Handball League forms data partnership with Sportradar". SBC News. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  29. 1 2 "ITF extends agreement with Sportradar through 2021". SportsPro. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  30. ↑ "NHL enlists Sportradar to provide real-time data". SportsPro. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  31. ↑ "FAM announce new Sportradar deal". FourFourTwo. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
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