Sportradar Inks Exclusive Deal for Conmebol Betting Data, Live Feeds
Sportradar and CONMEBOL have inked an exclusive multiyear agreement for gambling data and streaming rights, a partnership that covers some of the highest profile games from club teams in countries such as Brazil and Argentina.
It’s the first time that CONMEBOL, the governing body for soccer in South America, has awarded exclusive global rights that cover its sportsbook live feeds and official betting data. The deal came after a competitive tender process that started last year.
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Some of these rights were previously held by Stats Perform. The package does not include the popular Copa America national tournament—Sportradar (Nasdaq: SRAD) already has those rights via a prior CONMEBOL agreement.
At the core of this deal, Sportradar (Nasdaq: SRAD) will serve as a middleman, taking the official match data from CONMEBOL’s club competitions, repackaging it and selling it on to hundreds of sportsbooks around the world. For Sportradar, however, the deal includes more than just betting. The company is looking to expand its offerings to cover other forms of fan engagement, and this partnership pulls in a lot of those growing initiatives, according to chief commercial officer Eduard Blonk.
“Of course the betting operators are an important part of our business and an important source of income for our business, but we’re thinking about all the different ways you can reach a fan, and engage with them,” Blonk said in an interview. “And sports betting is just one element of that. But there are all the other elements of this deal—audio-visual feeds, programmatic advertising, sponsorship—all of those are elements where Sportradar plays a role.”
Sportradar’s revenue from non-U.S. audio/visual products, for example, was about $175.1 million (€160.5 million) in 2022, up 15% from 2021 and up 52% from 2020. The company’s U.S. business is reported separately, as a combined total of A/V and betting sales.
Blonk declined to provide financial specifics about the CONMEBOL deal, but said it was one of the company’s 10 most valuable partnerships. Sportradar’s other major data deals include the NBA, MLB, NHL, ITF tennis and UEFA, the governing body for soccer in Europe.
“Football is a global sport. It’s the No. 1 sport worldwide in total fanbase and it’s the No. 1 sport from a betting base,” Blonk said. “We’re looking at over €730 billion [$796 billion] in betting turnover from football annually, and South America is an important part of that.”
The CONMEBOL deal covers a trio club competitions—CONMEBOL Libertadores (men’s and women’s), CONMEBOL Sudamericana and CONMEBOL Recopa—for the next four seasons. It also covers betting rights for some continental youth and futsal events.
In addition to the prior Copa America relationship, Sportradar has been working with CONMEBOL since 2019 on providing integrity monitoring.
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