Tony Stewart Startup Racing Circuit Signs Gambling Data Deal With Genius Sports
Superstar Racing Experience, the new auto-racing circuit launched by NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham, is partnering with Genius Sports to power its betting platform.
Genius will take pre-race odds, plus live data from the cars and tracks, and package that into various betting products. When Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) partners with a betting operator, that company (or companies) will use the Genius data to build out odds and markets for gamblers.
Financial terms of the deal, which covers the next five years, weren’t released.
Legal sports gambling, now live in 20 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., is a popular way for nascent sports properties to attract new fans. SRX will launch its six-race inaugural season in June with a bit of a head start over the typical sports startup. For example, it already has a media agreement with CBS that will see all six short-track races televised in Saturday primetime on the network’s broadcast channel.
Secondly, the group boasts a well-known and well-connected list of backers. In addition to Stewart and Evernham, the other two co-founders are agent Sandy Montag, CEO of the Montag Group, and George Pyne, a former NASCAR executive who now runs Bruin Sports Capital.
“We see the way the industry is trending with respect to new forms of technology and sports-gaming,” Montag said in a statement. “We look forward to driving fan engagement in new and creative ways, and know our partnership with Genius Sports will set the foundation for that.”
Announced last July, SRX is offering a new type of racing circuit. While NASCAR is a collection of independently owned teams that compete against each other both on the track and off it, SRX is a single-entity model, meaning the league owns every team. That allows the circuit to control league-wide business, such as sponsorships and partnerships.
Its races will have smaller fields and be shorter in length so they fit into a two-hour broadcast window. Drivers will include Stewart, Helio Castroneves and Mark Webber.
Genius Sports is in the process of going public in $1.5 billion SPAC deal. The company works with sports leagues across the globe, including NASCAR, the NBA and English Premier League.
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