Genius Sports Q1
The top line
Q1 revenues increased 52% YoY to $53.7m, net operating loss of $5.3m was $2.2m less than in 2020. The group raised its revenue guidance 35% from $190m to $250m-$260m.
On a constant currency basis, revenue increased 40% YoY to $15.6m. Genius’s betting technology and content division increased revenue 42% to $39m, driven by price increases with existing customers, contract renewals and client wins.
Sports technology revenue increased 41.6% YoY to $5.4m, driven by new services to sports league and federations. Media tech and content revenues increased 127% YoY $9.4m, mainly driven by the acquisition of new customers in the Americas and Europe for programmatic advertising services.
Locked into NFL: Many of the analysts’ questions centred on the group’s agreement to be the official data distributor for the NFL. CEO Mark Locke was at pains to point out that it was much more than a simple data supply agreement and that his group will leverage the deal through many different initiatives. “Sports streaming, betting and fan engagement are all converging,” he said. The acquisitions of the data tracking specialist Second Spectrum and free-to-play games developer FanHub were all part of increasing player engagement, targeting and optimising marketing.
Staying on radar: Genius Sports won the NFL contract from its main rival SportRadar. When asked about the latter’s plan to continue distributing publicly available data to operators, CCO Jack Davison said: “Conversations are still in their early days. We always expected ‘Radar and others to offer unofficial products, (but) the market is such that there is real demand to work with official data.” He added that the NFL’s betting partners were required to use official data. The Genius-NFL agreement was not a “direct swap for the incumbent” data supplier and “we’re not asking sportsbooks to just buy our data,” added Locke.
“It’s about helping with the whole customer journey: how they acquire and engage players, use free-to-play products and drive retention metrics, as well as streaming rights for international markets.”
The core objective is to “use official data to drive betting markets” and encouraging a “holistic view of the GS product.”
Big bucket plans: The Genius product portfolio divides into “four buckets: official data for sports betting, official data for media outlets, international markets and streaming and additional revenue streams”. Locke added: “We don’t go with just NFL data, we show how we can add value with the NFL, cross-sell other sports, help extend reach and access different pots of budget with those operators. It’s a different type of deal to what has been widely reported because it gives us broader access to more revenues.” Sports betting generates most of the revenues and “advertising and the adtech business is growing really strongly and we’re adding lots of value there,” added Locke.
Margin aims: The group is aiming for 40% EBITDA margins, Second Spectrum and FanHub would generate revenues of $10-$15m and $7m in 2021 respectively, said CFO Nick Taylor. The cost of the NFL deal and its impact on EBITDA will be scheduled to run from September to January to align with the NFL season. While the company side-stepped the direct cost question, it did say that its adjusted EBITDA figures excludes the impact of the non-cash share payment to the NFL of 11.25 million warrants valued at around $170m, which will vest in the current quarter. Recall, the deal with the NFL was rumoured to be worth up to $120m a year. It is not known if the equity component forms part of that figure.
