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Sportradar has been essential to the modern sporting experience for nearly a quarter of a century, often operating behind the scenes as a critical technology provider.
Founded in 2001, the Swiss-based company has grown from its roots as a betting data specialist to become a full-service, vertically integrated leader in sports technology. Today, Sportradar’s tentacles touch every corner of the industry. Such is its unmatched scale, the company works with more than 2,100 clients and partners worldwide and covers more than a million events annually across all major sports.
Indeed, having positioned itself at the intersection of the sports, media and betting sectors, its client portfolio reads like a who’s who of the industry’s biggest players.
Organisations like the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Fifa, the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB), Uefa, ATP, Nascar and the Bundesliga all rely on Sportradar to capture and distribute live data to betting and gaming operators and media partners around the world. This data is also critical for performance applications and integrity protection purposes.
The likes of FanDuel, DraftKings and Betano depend on Sportradar’s technology to deliver live odds that underpin pre-match and in-play betting markets and a growing array of other data-driven products. Meanwhile major broadcasters, digital media platforms and content publishers such as DAZN, Google, Meta and Amazon Prime Video utilise Sportradar’s stats, analytics and streaming solutions to create storylines and data visualisations that keep fans and viewers engaged throughout the action.
In short, Sportradar provides the infrastructure that powers much of the sports media value chain – and impacts what millions of fans, bettors and casual viewers experience every week. Far from being merely a data distributor, the company is an all-encompassing enabler, one whose market-leading position within the burgeoning sports tech sector is perhaps best evidenced by the strength of its balance sheet.
On two occasions in 2025, the NASDAQ-listed company has revised its financial outlook for the current fiscal year. In August, after a second quarter in which profit for the period increased to €49 million, it raised its full-year forecast to revenue of at least €1.278 billion. It then reset its expectations once again, to at least €1.29 billion, in November, a figure that would represent year-on-year growth of 17 per cent.
Betting technology and solutions, Sportradar’s bread and butter, remains a robust budget line for the business but, throughout the year, significant growth has been witnessed in its Sports Content, Technology & Services vertical, which in turn has been fuelled by a marked uplift in income – amounting to 33 per cent of US$292 million in total Q3 revenue – from Marketing & Media Services.
Geographically speaking, the strong results have been driven by continued market growth in the US, which now accounts for around 26 per cent of the company’s business. All told, Sportradar is well on track to achieve its target of generating at least €1.7 billion in annual revenue by 2027.
Playing in the big leagues
Aside from affirming its already healthy financial outlook, Sportradar’s year to date has been defined by several new and extended league partnerships that further cement its market-leading position.
In February, the company expanded its deal to distribute low-latency official data and audiovisual content for MLB, prolonging a partnership that began in 2014. As per the terms of the eight-year extension, which also includes the provision of integrity services and player-tracking data, MLB acquired an equity stake in Sportradar, joining the NBA as a shareholder in the business.
Long-term partnerships of that nature bring both stability and certainty and are undoubtedly savvy strategic plays, with the company projecting that the resulting revenue growth will outpace sports rights expenses over the coming months. At its Investor Day in April, the company noted that the average term remaining on its key league contracts – including a recently renewed partnership with Bundesliga International that dates back to 2005 and now runs into the next decade – is a shareholder-friendly six years.
Sportradar also expanded its global soccer offering in the summer by distributing ultra-low latency betting data and media content from the Fifa Club World Cup thanks to a new partnership with tournament broadcast partner DAZN. But perhaps the most consequential piece of deal-making completed this year saw the company take ownership of IMG Arena, a smaller, younger challenger whose clients include the Wimbledon, US Open and French Open tennis Grand Slams, Major League Soccer (MLS), Euroleague Basketball and golf’s PGA Tour.
Announced in March and completed in November, the uniquely structured takeover saw Sportradar pay nothing whatsoever for the business. Instead, the company itself was paid US$225 million to take on IMG Arena, including US$103 million in cash to be paid over a two-year period and up to US$122 million in pre-payments for certain sports rights holders.
The integration of IMG Arena, and its highly complementary portfolio of rights, derived through relationships with more than 70 clients across 14 of the world’s most-watched and bet-on sports, including soccer, tennis, golf and basketball, into the Sportradar business is well underway. Its rights will be monetised across Sportradar’s sprawling client network, strengthening the company’s balance sheet still further and unlocking new commercial opportunities.
Upon completion Carsten Koerl, Sportradar’s chief executive, described the IMG Arena deal as a “significant milestone” for the business, ensuring that it is “uniquely positioned to deliver even more immersive, data rich experiences to our clients, partners and fans around the world.”
AI-powered innovation
Such experiences are all part of Sportradar’s USP. Data-driven fan engagement and betting products have become core to the company’s offering, while artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used to accelerate progress.
According to Behshad Behzadi, the company’s chief product, technology and AI officer, AI is now central to everything Sportradar does. Having been deploying AI in some form for over a decade, the company now employs more than 150 AI scientists and engineers and boasts over 100 use cases.
As well as fast-tracking production innovation, such deep experience has enabled Sportradar to improve operational efficiencies and unlock greater value from its data assets, while also lowering technological growth barriers for partners and clients in the sports ecosystem who can now integrate its APIs, bring products to market and begin driving revenue faster than ever before.
“AI is changing every industry and sport is no exception,” says Behzadi, a former Google executive who was hired in 2024 to drive Sportradar’s usage of AI and other technologies. “At Sportradar we are very serious about trying to get the most of AI to make scaling easier and achieve operational efficiency. It’s about making the most of the data collected from more than a million games each year through computer vision and [transforming] this into the fan experience.”
Perhaps the best-known manifestation of that approach is found in the increasingly popular alternate broadcasts or ‘altcasts’, which enrich live coverage using graphical overlays that leverage advanced tracking data to provide the viewer with deeper insight into the action.
Deploying its advanced, proprietary technology, Sportradar has developed a full suite of innovative products for the NBA and its partners, including a virtualised match tracker, animated overlays and interactive broadcast graphics that utilise real-time skeletal tracking data. For US broadcaster NBC, whose multi-billion-dollar media rights deal with the NBA began at the start of this season, the company has also created Performance View, a customised viewing mode for games shown via Peacock that enables fans to access predictive insights into what might happen next on the court.
“The same game can now be covered in many different formats and have many different stories,” says Behzadi. “We’re working on trying to convert the data that we collect and the videos that we have into many different variations for the right fans and the right moments.”
This year, Sportradar has expanded its offering to sportsbooks and bettors, too. Since its formation, the company has worked closely with betting clients to power new markets and products that encourage consumer acquisition, retention and engagement. Now, with the power of AI, its products can deliver greater personalisation, targeting bettors with specific odds and customised content, while also encouraging betting integrity by preventing fraudulent activity.
For example, generative AI (GenAI) audio, a new feature within Sportradar’s established multi-channel marketing service, uses live data to automate the creation of personalised, real-time audio adverts for sportsbook and casino operators. Meanwhile Alpha Odds, the company’s AI-enabled premium odds calculation and risk management solution, has been rolled out in cricket. Bettor Sense, its proprietary, AI-powered responsible gaming solution, is widely used across sports having been launched in July.
“AI powers those betting markets and predictions for results that might happen, but this is traditional AI,” adds Behzadi. “The storytelling ability of GenAI will help our bettors understand what these odds mean – is it a good odd or not? It can explain how often a team scores in the last ten minutes, how they’re doing in recent games. It makes betting more understandable and consumable.”
That focus on the end user – whether a bettor or a casual viewer – continues to guide Sportradar’s product development and experimentation, says Behzadi, ensuring its solutions are genuinely additive to the fan experience. The company’s competitive edge lies in its ability to apply AI in meaningful ways, he adds – and its internal commitment to keeping pace with what’s coming next.
“The pace of AI changes so fast that in order to be successful, an organisation needs to have an AI-focused team which is trying to keep up with the pace of change,” he says. “The best solutions of a year ago are different than the best solutions of today, and it will also be different a year from now.”
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