Weeks before the start of the English Premier League season, Genius Sports has extended a data rights agreement with Football DataCo, the official data rights holder of several prominent U.K. football leagues.
The agreement signed with Football DataCo this week extends the official sports betting data partnership into 2029.
Football DataCo handles the data rights for the English Premier League, along with the English Football League, and the Scottish Professional Football League. The announcement concludes an exclusive negotiating window between the parties that began in March.
“Over the last five years, our official data and technology partnership with Football DataCo has been transformational to the growth of Genius Sports,” Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said. “This renewal underpins our continued business expansion and fuels the trajectory of our medium-term financial outlook. Going forward, we expect the partnership to act as a flywheel to drive further innovation and value for our sportsbook partners.”
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Since 2019, Genius has served as Football DataCo’s (FDC) exclusive betting data supplier, disseminating data from inside the stadium to partnering sportsbooks at a rapid pace.
According to a Genius’ press release, the company’s data feed has the capability to send low-latency data to hundreds of licensed sportsbooks across the globe in under a second. The agreement covers more than 4,000 matches per season.
Under the deal, Genius will provide partnering sportsbooks with player market data on a wide variety of pre-game and in-game betting markets. The data covers markets for numerous props, such as assists, completions, and number of shots on target, according to Genius.
The company will continue to provide AI-powered tracking technology to the three English leagues. Last June, Genius inked a deal with FDC to supply the English Football League with the sophisticated player-tracking data. Genius began providing the Premier League with the data in 2020.
Some highlights of this week’s deal:
- The deal extends Genius Sports’ exclusive partnership to collect, license, and distribute official live betting data for Football DataCo, the data rights holder of U.K. football.
- Under a partnership with Premier League Productions, Genius powers Data Zone, a data-driven, immersive broadcast experience shown to millions of fans worldwide with insights on player IDs, pitch maps, shot velocities, player speeds, and more. The partnership supplements Genius’ suite of products on the betting side.
- Beginning with the 2025-26 season, FDC will grant Genius with exclusive distribution rights for official player market data to power a new suite of betting products.
Sportradar, Genius Sports’ main rival, filed a lawsuit against Genius and Football DataCo in March 2020. Under the suit, Sportradar alleged that Genius violated European Union and U.K. competition law by preventing the company from collecting and disseminating data on league matches.
In Oct. 2022, Sportradar agreed to purchase a sublicense from Genius, which enabled the former to furnish delayed data on the events. At the time, the companies came to on a confidential settlement agreement that resolved the litigation.
Among the world’s top professional sports leagues, Genius Sports and Sportradar own a practical duopoly on the global sports betting data market. In 2021, Genius signed an exclusive data partnership with the NFL, shortly before Sportradar completed a similar agreement with the NBA.
The English Premier League kicks off on Aug. 16 with nine matches on the slate for opening weekend. Manchester City (+120) is favored at FanDuel to defend its crown, followed by Arsenal and Liverpool at +175 and +650, respectively.
