Sportradar continues to expand its presence throughout professional sports by inking a new deal with the National Hockey League (NHL) this week. The deal now gives the company a monopoly of sports betting data with all four of the major professional sports leagues in the United States.
The NFL, MLB and NBA have already signed deals with Sportradar as far back as one year ago. Additionally, this partnership was made just in time for Sportadar’s next move, which reportedly will see the company go public.
More Details About the Deal With the NHL
While many of the details for this partnership have not been officially released, industry experts believe the news will trickle out over the next week or so. Yet, it’s not hard to speculate what this partnership will entail considering there are numerous other professional leagues with similar deals.
Sportradar is a global provider of all things sports data related and they have created quite the reputation in this industry. The league data will be used for sports wagering operations, which means Sportradar will also have the betting data rights for the National Hockey League.
Some of the NHL stats that Sportradar will have access to include popular categories like assists and goals. They can use this data to sell to the casinos and sportsbooks so that those entities can create various prop bets and properly handicap games.
Sportradar Is Strong Outside the U.S. As Well
While the U.S. deals are certainly newsworthy, Sportradar hasn’t packed all its eggs into one basket. In fact it has deals and partnerships with leagues all around the world that include sports ranging from badminton to soccer.
It’s become clear that Sportradar is laying out a roadmap in the United States that would position it as the leader in sports data distribution in the prosperous American sports betting market. It’s come a long way in the country since their first deal with the NFL was originally announced in August 2019.
What’s In It for the NHL?
While it’s clear what the motivation is for Sportradar, the NHL has a reason to move forward with the deal as well. Much of this reason is to boost fan engagement, something that is especially low right now since there’s no fans in attendance for live games.
The NHL has hopes that this sort of partnership will generate excitement and even draw new fans and audiences to the games thanks to legalized sports wagering in many of the states that have teams.
Analysts, and NHL’s top brass, believe a deal like this can help the sport to bounce back even while playing in the bubble it’s currently in and then grow from there.
The fact that Sportradar has been the official distributor for the league’s play-by-play data for years now, makes this partnership even more of a no-brainer.
Rick Rockwell
As a longtime freelance writer, avid sports fan, former athlete, and experienced sports bettor, Rick Rockwell has risen up the ranks at GamblingSites.org to become the self-professed “King of the Blog” in his first year with the site. …
