Sportradar boosts betting options despite sports stoppage

Sportradar has released figures showing an 11 per cent growth in its sports content and coverage compared to this time last year, despite the postponement or cancellation of live sports due to COVID-19.

The betting and gaming team has been working night and day to fill the gap left by the lack of live sports. It has done that by increasing its portfolio of virtual sports, esports, unconventional sports, and new sporting events such as darts from home and tennis played on private courts.

Sportradar managing director of betting and gaming Warren Murphy said: “Interestingly, the number of games we are covering is massively up on this time last year.”

As a result, the company has increased the number of betting events by 11 per cent, with its live odds coverage up 30 per cent, and live data up 20 per cent compared to this time last year.

“The reason is that many of the games are a much shorter duration than soccer, which is the dominant betting sport globally,” continued Murphy.

The most eye-catching of Sportradar’s new products is its simulated reality football content, which sees the current football season being played out virtually. Initially launching with English Premier League football, Spain's La Liga and Germany's Bundesliga, the first weekend’s games were broadcast by 250 operators.

Since Liverpool fans watched their virtual team lose 2-1 to Manchester City on the opening weekend, the company has increased its portfolio of simulated products to include Italy’s Serie A, the Greek Super League, the Turkish Super Lig, cricket’s IPL and more. Other sports, including tennis, are coming soon. All are being played, as live, on the dates when the fixtures would have taken place.

In addition to the simulated games, there has been a big demand for more traditional virtual sports content, resulting in a 300 per cent increase in virtual gaming revenue.

Esports has also been popular with a huge growth in betting on sporting esports such as FIFA20 and NBA 2K, which had previously been small betting events compared to the likes of CS:GO, League of Legends and Dota2.

The esports events include the Brazilian Confederation of esports (CBES) Pro Player Cup, Uruguayan Federation of Virtual Football (FEFV) Pro Club League, and the Russian Premier League (RPL) Cyberleague Pro Series, which feature some of the world’s top-tier players in action.

The final category has been the increase in betting on non-traditional sports such as table tennis, and specially designed live sports tournaments featuring some of the sports’ best players live from a private court or their own living rooms.

Sportradar has used its partnerships with leagues and federations across the world to help curate a number of live tournaments designed to provide sports entertainment and coverage during the crisis. These include the International Tennis Series Presented by SportsEdTv (coming next week), Brazil Autumn Cup Table Tennis and PDC Home Tour (darts on Skype).

Murphy added that the company has been extremely swift to react to the crisis, redeploying talent across the organisation to focus the company on a new range of non-traditional sports and betting products.

Sportradar chief executive officer Carsten Koerl added: “During this time, we have been able to quickly adapt to change and constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the products and services we are offering. We’re pleased to have been able to utilise our technological expertise, comprehensive sports data and sports partnerships across the world quickly to continue to help our customers deliver entertainment and engagement with additional live content and coverage.”

Beyond sports, Sportradar also provides a pre-draw lottery betting solution, with coverage around the clock of more than 10,400 draws per week from over 165 state lotteries worldwide.