Betting data shows big profitability for Genius Sports
By Charlie Dear
The commercial value of sports data and technology continues to be a hot topic, as London-based sportstech Genius Sports reveal their latest financial reports.
Genius Sports’ Q3 report for 2024 reveals profits of $120m (£94m), an increase from their 2023 Q3 results of $101.7m, representing an 18.2% growth year-over-year (Y-o-Y).
This exceeded their forecasts of $119m, bringing the group’s total year-to-date (YTD) revenue to $335.5m, which is 17% more than the $285.8m YTD revenue recorded in Q3 2023. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be valued at approximately $86m which would be a rise of 61% Y-o-Y. The company also expects to generate a positive cash flow for the next quarter of 2024.
Mark Locke, Genius Sports co-founder and CEO, said: “Our strong results are underpinned by our successful commercial execution, positioning us to capture profitable growth alongside our partners as the sports betting industry continues to evolve and expand.
“We are empowering partners across the sports ecosystem to better reach, engage and monetise fans using our innovative technology and unique data-driven insights.”
A key feature to point out was the increase in their betting, technology, content and services revenue of 29.9% year-over-year in Q3 2024 compared to their Q3 2023 margins. This was driven primarily by higher customer utilisation of Genius Sports’ available content, combined with existing customer growth as a result of price increases on contract renewals and renegotiations.
This can be contrasted with the results from their media, technology, content and services going down by 4% as well as their sports, technology and services revenue decreasing by 3% Y-o-Y.
This highlights that Genius Sports’ betting activity stands out as the main growth driver this quarter, indicative of the increasing value of the global betting sector. The growth of the US as a prominent market in 2018 is a big factor; so the forthcoming launch of a Brazilian betting market in January 2025 will only serve to push this forward further.
Genius’ success in the global sports data sector has arisen from its many partnerships with various major sports organisations. Most notably in its arrangement with FootballDataCo, the data rights holder of English professional football.
This deal makes Genius Sports the primary data and sportstech partner of the Premier League and English Football League (EFL). Earlier this year it also inked a deal with the Premier League to enhance the top-flights Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology using its AI solutions.