Sportradar

Sportradar grew out of a software program that crawled the internet to extract betting odds from sports betting companies. The program was developed by two Norwegians, Petter Fornass and Tore Steinkjer, who formed the company Market Monitor AS in 2001.[4] Carsten Koerl was a major investor, buying 51% of the company's stock.[5]

In 2013, the company made several strategic acquisitions, including Attainment GmbH, Venatrack Ltd., and Klika d.o.o.[6]

In September 2014 Sportradar became a shareholder of NSoft, a software company from Bosnia and Herzegovina that offers an omnichannel betting solution for betting and gambling operators. Sportradar holds 40% of NSoft's shares.[7] EQT reinvested in Sportradar in 2014 by EQT's flagship fund buying the shares of EQT's Capital Expansion II.[8]

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.[9] 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.[10]

Later that year, the NBA announced a multi-year partnership with Sportradar involving integrity services, data distribution and video streaming.[2]

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. The Sportradar services are also used by state lotteries such as Veikkaus, Svenska Spel and Norsk Tipping.

Sportradar creates 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. These odds are sold as odds suggestions to bookmakers for matches the bookmakers are unable to create their own odds for.

Sportradar will also use its integrity services to monitor betting on all NFL games and will have the right to distribute live audiovisual feeds of NFL games to sportsbooks in select international markets.[11]

In 2016, Sportradar agreed to a deal to acquire the shares and core business of media agency Sportsman Media Group, expanding their services to include AV, OTT and Broadcast distribution.[12]

They have worked with the World Rally Championship[13] and Borussia Dortmund[14] to deliver their B2C OTT platforms.

The K League signed an exclusive multi-year deal with Sportradar [15] in late that entrusted the company to extend its broadcast and fan reach globally. This saw coverage reach a record number of territories during the 2020 season which was interrupted due to the pandemic.[16]

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 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. The system was further developed to include live monitoring, and was relaunched in 2009 as Fraud Detection System (FDS).[17]

The development of FDS was done in cooperation with UEFA. 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,CONCACAF, FIBA, ESL[18] and IOC.[19] Sportradar has also signed agreements with several law enforcement agencies, most notably Europol[20] and the Australian Federal Police.

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.[21] As of 2015, the 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.[22]

Since the launch of the Fraud Detection System, Sportradar has been involved in several notable match fixing cases, such as the Nepal scandal in 2015,[23] the Austrian case including Sanel Kuljić in 2013, and the Australian match fixing case in 2013. The system has indicated that since 2009, more than 2000 events have likely been manipulated.[22]

The range of services has extended to include Sportradar’s Intelligence & Investigation Services (I&I) which was established in 2013. They are a world leader in providing intelligence and investigation solutions to sporting federations, law enforcement, government agencies, clubs, anti-doping organisations and the gaming industry with the team currently supporting 50+ partners. In November 2020, Sportradar announced extending its I&I capabilities to specifically supporting more US Clients.[24]

Sportradar has partnered with several sports federations to collect or distribute sports data. For Handball-Bundesliga Sportradar[25] both collects and distributes official data, while for the ITF, the umpire enters the data directly into the Sportradar systems.[26]

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).[27]

• Genius Sports