Sportradar Locks in Ten Year Deal with the National Hockey League
Sportradar, a leading global provider of sports betting and entertainment products and services, has finalized a 10 year deal with the National Hockey League for exclusive, global distribution rights of NHL data to media companies and sportsbooks. They will also be streaming out of market NHL content to sportsbooks while also assisting the league to take advantage of international betting sponsorships.
For both Sportradar and the NHL, Europe is a big market, especially in Northern and Eastern Europe, where hockey is extremely popular and Sportradar already has a strong partnership presence. This deal further solidifies an existing seven year relationship between the betting technology provider and the league with 31 teams in the United States and Canada.
Sportradar’s United States head of sports content and sponsorships, Steve Byrd, commented the “The NHL is a huge opportunity for us in a lot of markets where we have big betting operator clients, in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. We’re excited to have video rights to stream games there, and to be doing these sponsorship packages that tie a lot of the rights together.”
Steve McArdle, the NHL’s Sr. Executive Vice President for Digital Media and Strategic Planning added, ““We’re admittedly just at the starting point of this journey on tracking and using the data to tell stories. Having another partner who is fully invested in learning along with us the right ways to share that data, to present that data, and in the sports betting context the right ways to use that data, that’s very important to us.”
Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl had the following to say about the deal: “The NHL has been a terrific partner for Sportradar for nearly seven years. This agreement truly highlights the global, multi-vertical, wide-ranging capabilities of Sportradar’s technology solutions and reflects how we use data to create engaging, personalized experiences for our partners and customers.”
United States Sports Betting Update
Ever since the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, states, sports leagues and sportsbook operators have been increasing activity in legal sports betting. Thirty states have so far approved legislation allowing wagering on sports, with 22 having implemented the practice and 15 of those allowing mobile betting platforms to operate in the state.
The growth in sports betting in the United States has been steady, if not explosive at times, and that has been without legal wagering allowed in California, Texas and Florida which are collectively home to 26 Big Four professional franchises. Florida has approved sports betting, but Texas and California are still at least two years away from legalized wagers taking place.
About Sportradar
Sportradar is a Swiss company that was established in 2001 and has operations in 30 countries around the world. The 3,000 employee company has existing partnerships with the NHL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, FIFA, UEFA among others to provide data and insights on more than 720,000 events on an annual basis.
As sports betting revenues continue to rise and more states approve wagering on athletic competitions, companies like Sportradar will keep finding innovative ways to provide technological support to sportsbook operators, sports organizations, individual teams and consumers.
