Sportradar Q3
The top line
- Revenue up 30% YoY to $158.7m (€136.8m) and adj. EBITDA up 21% to $24.2m (€20.9m).
- During the period, Sportradar completed its Nasdaq listing raising $546m.
- FY21 revenues expected at between $641-644m, adj. EBITDA at $115.4-117.7m.
- US revenues up 119% to €19.6m, RoW betting up 24% to €78.6m and RoW AV up 13% to €29m.
- New NBA deal announced extending the existing exclusive arrangement for another eight years.
Slam dunk: The early extension of Sportradar’s exclusive data deal with the NBA was warmly welcomed by the analysts who suggested it removed a potential stock overhang. The new arrangement means Sportradar has exclusivity on US and global distribution for the NBA for the next 10 years and will see the NBA take a 3% stake in Sportradar.
“We believe the new deal removes a potential overhang, with the previous deal set to expire in 2023, and reinforces SRAD’s commitment to the US market,” said the analysts at Deutsche Bank.
Think global: On the call with analysts, CEO Carsten Koerl pointed to the NBA’s global appeal with an audience of ~2bn. “The opportunities with this partnership with the NBA are really endless,” he said. The Jefferies team were similarly impressed, suggesting the partnership “should provide incremental visibility into the US growth trajectory over the medium term”.
Full court press: The NBA’s importance to the US betting ecosystem was emphasized by Koerl, who pointed out that at around 21% of handle (NFL on 19%), it was the most bet sport pre-match and the leading in-play sport with 25% (NFL 14%). “The NBA is undoubtedly a better live betting sport than the NFL is,” he added.
“NBA is clearly a betting sport for in-play,” Koerl said. “We believe that in-play gets more and more market shares. We believe that this is a trend which follows very strongly what we saw in the international, especially the European market, for the last 10 years. And as you might know, in the European markets in-play is more than 70% of the revenues.”
Different ball game: Equally significant for the group is the recent exclusive data deal with UEFA, the first such deal for European soccer’s governing body and the organizer of all UEFA competitions including the Champions League and the European Championships. Koerl was keen to point to soccer’s pre-eminence as a betting medium globally. “Soccer is the most bet on sport in the world with a handle of €850bn each year, far exceeding the handle of American sports, such as the NFL, which is €41.8bn annually,” he said.
