Sportradar Poised for a $10bn Public Debut via SPAC

Sportradar AG, the Swiss multinational corporation for collection and analysis of sports data for sports betting companies is in talks for going public through a reverse merger acquisition with Horizon Acquisition Corp. II, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). According to sports media platform Sportico, this arrangement puts the value of Sportradar, the sports data company at a sum of $10 billion.

Horizon Acquisition Corp. II is a blank check company or SPAC founded by Todd Boehly last September. Boehly is a majority owner of Eldridge Industries, a Connecticut-based holding company with several sports investments which include minority ownership of American professional baseball team Los Angeles Dodgers, and a venture capital share in DraftKings. Jason Robins, the CEO of Nasdaq-listed DraftKings is also one of the board members of Horizon Acquisition Corp. II.

The SPAC raised over $525 million a month later and disclosed that it aims to do business with a firm in n media and entertainment. Reports from anonymous sources close to the matter indicate that Sportradar and Todd Boehly’s blank check vessel have signed a letter of intent, confirming that the deal is already in motion.

Reports of Sportradar’s plan to become a publicly-traded company first surfaced last July and at that time, sources indicated that the sports data bigwig was considering the option of either doing it via a SPAC or going the traditional way through an IPO. Thus, for the better part of Q2 2020, Sportradar was the most sought-after brand by both blank check vehicles and IPO bankers in the global sports sector.

Two Decades of Serving the Sports World

Sportradar was founded in 2000 by two Norwegians, Tore Steinkjer and Petter Fornass as a software program whose function was to crawl the internet and extract betting odds from sports betting companies. Carsten Koerl is currently the owner of the company with a 51% ownership after he bought the stock in the company’s early days.  Right now, Sportradar is headquartered in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and has a presence in 24 countries with a total of 35 offices. Additionally, it has over 1,000 partners from over 80 countries.

The main business of the company today is packaging data from sporting events from different parts of the globe and selling it to sports betting operators and media companies worldwide. Every year, Sportradar covers more than 350,000 events cutting across over 50 different sports. One of its biggest strengths is its partnership with some of the largest sporting bodies in the world including FIFA, NASCAR, MLB, NBA, NHL, and the NFL, and of course a strong backing from moneyed investors. The company is also partnered with household names in the US sports betting industry such as BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel.

On top of putting sports data up for sale, Sportradar also championing the integrity of sports through an integrity program that keeps an eye on betting lines and looks into potential sports fraud such as match-fixing. It’s no wonder why the company recently signed a deal with American East Conference athletes to provide betting integrity education.

As we speak the most notable investors of Sportradar include Michael Jordan, Ted Leonsis, and Mark Cuban, all of whom are big investors in the NBA. The NFL (National Football League) is also one of the most prominent investors in the sports data company. The NBA triad came on board in 2015 and in 2018, the value of Sportradar shot to $2.4 billion after TCV a private equity firm, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought a minority stake in the company.

Following the Footsteps of DraftKings and Genius Sports

Sportradar’s pursuit of being a publicly-traded company isn’t a big surprise as the world of sports betting is growing bigger especially in the USA where states continue to legalize sports betting month after month.

Based on a recent report published by Variety, nearly 70% of the sportsbook handle in European bookmakers comes from live betting whereas in the US, live betting accounts for 50% of the handle. Fast and reliable data is therefore becoming more crucial for powering live-betting platforms that are built on markets such as the next NFL touchdown, the next basketball three-pointer, or the next soccer goal.

By teaming up with a blank check vehicle to become a publicly-traded company, Sportradar will join the ranks of DraftKings, the biggest online sports betting and fantasy sports company in the USA, and Genius Sports, a rival sports data brand. DraftKings made its debut on Nasdaq last year after a $3 billion reverse merger acquisition with Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp SPAC and Genius Sports’ public launch on the NYSE is imminent after it filed its a $1.5 billion IPO statement in January.