North America’s Major League Baseball (MLB) and Sportradar, the Switzerland-based sports technology company, have struck a new long-term deal, which involves the league taking an equity stake in its partner.
The tie-up between the two parties, which originally began in 2014, has now been extended through 2032, with this new agreement beginning in the upcoming 2025 campaign.
The equity stake element will see MLB issued a total of 1,855,724 Class A Sportradar shares.
Sportradar will continue as the exclusive distributor of ultra-low latency official MLB data, media content such as MLB Statcast data, as well as audio-visual content, across its network of global clients. This network includes 800 sports book clients and 900 media companies, Sportradar has claimed.
The sports tech heavyweight will also continue to provide its range of integrity services, including its Universal Fraud Detection System, to MLB, with the latter product used to “monitor global betting activity.”
In addition, the two parties will work tougher on creating artificial intelligence products, powered by player tracking data, to “create immersive, hyper-personalised fan experiences.”
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By GlobalDataThe most recent collaboration between Sportradar and MLB, unveiled last November, covered player scouting and video analysis.
Sportradar’s Synergy Coaching and Scouting technology, through that deal, became the main scouting service of the baseball league.
This means that starting in the 2025 season, MLB and its 30 clubs will, through the deal, gain access to video analysis of a massively increased number of non-MLB games – this number is rising from 3,000 to over 20,000.
This year’s MLB season gets underway on March 18, through a two-game series in Tokyo, Japan, with the first US games to be held on March 27.
Carsten Koerl, chief executive at Sportradar, said: “By combining our strengths, we can unlock new opportunities and reach more sports fans around the globe to shape the future of sports entertainment. This deal, which is immediately accretive to our business, will drive value for our shareholders as we continue to expand margins and generate strong cash flow.”
Kenny Gersh, MLB’s executive vice president, media and business development, added: “Over the course of our partnership, Sportradar has consistently developed great products utilizing MLB’s best-in-class data. MLB is delighted to continue innovating with Sportradar to create engaging products and services for MLB fans globally.”
In terms of recent Sportradar activity, early December saw the company open an office in Brazil.
Read an interview with Carsten Koerl here.