Two deals by the major sports data providers point to NCAA being the next major field of data competition, suggest sources.
Recent deals involving Sportradar and Genius Sports have a significance for the market for College sports data, and particularly College football.
First we have Sportradar’s deal with Bowl Season, which coordinates the various College Bowl games at the end of the football season.
According to the press release, the deal involved a “strategic advisory” aspect including help and support when it comes to Bowl Season’s educational efforts and specifically during its annual general meeting.
The second deal came with Genius Sports’ deal with the Mid-Atlantic Conference (MAC) that is an all-encompassing “sports data, fan engagements and integrity partnership”
The deal details
Sportradar said in its press release that the deal reflected the company’s “continuous efforts to strengthen its college sports offering for partners and customers.”
As part of this, the company’s recently acquired Synergy Sports unit has been providing coaching, scouting and analytics to Colleges since 2007. Meanwhile, the company has also struck up integrity partnerships with various college athletic conferences and had launched a direct-to-consumers broadcasting platform with a college sports partner.
“We see untapped potential in the collegiate sports space, and this multifaceted partnership will help the organization enhance an already exciting experience for their fans and reach a broader audience,” said Sportradar chief commercial officer Ed Blonk in a statement.
“Sportradar’s expertise in creating immersive experiences for sports fans is a perfect fit for Bowl Season,” said Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli.
Genius Sports’ deal with MAC, meanwhile, will see the company “capture, manage and distribute” game data via Genius already existing NCAA LiveStats offering while its Second Spectrum business will provide data tracking and video augmentation solution to MAC’s men’s basketball championship.
MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said of the deal that it would permit his organization “to exert greater control of our statistics, provide increased oversight over events through the utilization of integrity services and provide support and financial benefits for the Conference and its membership.”
He added that MAC has a “responsibility to manage our assets and leverage those assets for the benefit of the student-athletes and our member institutions.”
The data element is key
Notably missing from each of the press releases about either deal is sports betting.
Indeed, the Sportradar deal doesn’t even mention data collection, though sources suggest that is very much a part of the deal. Yet, as an ESPN story on the deal pointed out, all five states covered by the MAC conference – Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio – either have have regulated mobile sports betting or have passed legislation to do so.
In that same story, Steinbrecher said: “We’re doing this to control our data, which ends up in the public domain anyway.”
“We want to manage that asset,” Steinbrecher said. “We want that asset to provide value back to our institutions so that we can support our student-athletes, plain and simple.”
Hence, as a source told Wagers.com, the two pieces of recent news are an acknowledgement that the “rapidly evolving college sports data ecosystem” is likely to be “the next battleground” for sports data for sports betting purposes.
NCAA’s stance on betting
This may sound somewhat at odds with the official stance of the NCAA. Those LiveStats provided by Genius Sports, for instance, are not meant for use in betting.
According to the NCAA official statement on betting, the body “opposes all forms of legal and illegal sports wagering on college sports.”
How this official position squares with the betting activity that surrounds March Madness and the rest of the college sports calendar is something that only the NCAA could – but likely won’t – answer.
Data deals point to acceptance
Hence, the deals done recently suggest the body is inching to a more realistic position. Attempting to hold the line on betting while officially doing deals that inevitably involve data being passed on to the sportsbooks is increasingly unsustainable.
As sources suggest, with all the major leagues now having done deals for data, it leaves the College conferences as the last big area for sports data expansion.
To ESPN Steinbrecher said: “We are of the opinion that the deal we’re entering into is consistent with NCAA rules and regulations.”
Consistent? Maybe. More realistically, recent deals done by Sportradar and Genius Sports suggest we are on the cusp of another sports data land grab.
Even if sports betting is missing from the official press releases, it won’t be hard to read between the lines to understand what the deals are really all about.
