During the pandemic, Sportradar invested heavily in e-sports: Mona Motwani

Sportradar is a global provider of sports betting and sports entertainment products and services. Established in 2001, the company occupies a unique position at the intersection of the sports, media and betting industries, providing sports federations, news media, consumer platforms and sports betting operators with a range of solutions to help grow their business.

With more than 15 years’ experience as a sports OTT provider, Sportradar’s team of specialists understand the flexibility live sport requires and offer bespoke, data-driven OTT solutions for rights holders.

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As pioneers in combining the power of live sports data and video, as well as analysing fan behaviour, Sportradar is able to offer personalised, targeted content to engage audiences and grow awareness around any sport or product.

With their market data and industry expertise, Sportradar is uniquely positioned to provide custom monetization solutions to rights holders through a combination of advertising, subscription, retail, and sponsorship.

To further understand how Sportradar can expand a League’s global footprint through their technology-based, data-driven approach to rights distribution, and helping the League unlock new commercial partnerships and opportunities off the back of that increased engagement, Adgully spoke to Mona Motwani, Director - Sports Content & Partnerships, India at Sportradar.

What has been the role of Sportradar in the Indian sports arena? Can you elaborate some of your initiatives and the journey of the brand in India?

Sportradar has been in India for nearly six years, and we have built very strong relationships with leagues and federations, particularly on integrity, and we also have data and media agreements with some of the leagues and federations. We provide data to media houses, gaming companies and broadcasters, and some of the companies Sportradar is working with are Dream11, 11Wickets, and Fancode. We also provide broadcast content to Sony Networks, apart from working very closely with leagues and federations on broadcast content. We have worked with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on integrity for the last two editions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which is the biggest T20 League in the world in terms of volume and participation. We also work on the integrity side with the biggest professional football league in the country, the Indian Super League (ISL), and with the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), which is a traditional sport with a huge fan following and market implications in the Indian sporting ecosystem. Apart from these, we also have partnerships with the Pro Volleyball League in the first edition, the Football Delhi (Delhi Soccer Association) and we are currently in the process of partnering with state cricket leagues and sports federations in the country.

The Indian sports market is massive and we have seen rapid growth in this sector in recent times. We have seen the proliferation of different sports leagues in India driven by the IPL, including the Indian Super League, the Pro Kabaddi League and now the different state leagues as well. We are looking to support the overall ecosystem by providing many leagues and sports federations with integrity services, and our digital, transformation solutions to enable them to monetise their data and media through distribution all over the world. For Indian publishers, broadcasters and gaming companies, we want to provide the large inventory of data and media that we have. It is a robust market with a lot of players and we have been reaching out to offer our catalogues of rights and data solutions.

Data has become an important part in every sport. What prompted Sportradar to acquire Interact Sport and how is it going to help Sportradar both in terms of adding value to various sports and bring in sales growth for the company?

Our acquisition of InteractSport reinforces our commitment to cricket and enables us to widen our data and content offerings. InteractSport does a lot of great work around the ,world including with the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Cricket Australia (CA), various other leagues and federations as well as with grassroots clubs. We hope to bring their solutions to the sub-continent and to leagues and federations across that. With cricket being one of the most popular sports in the world, especially in India, we see this as a growth opportunity for the company.

How is this new collaboration going to help the game of cricket and other sports in India in the near future?

InteractSport has a lot of tools that provide insights to cricket federations, help them engage with fans, help them with their administration and competition management, and these are solutions that are going to help Indian cricket grow. Indian cricket has already grown, it has matured, but through InteractSport and our expertise in digital transformation solutions, we can help the leagues and federations capture data and media that is something we can provide to Indian broadcasters and Indian media companies and disseminate globally.

In addition to cricket, we are looking to support the growth of other leagues and federations by providing them with integrity services, digital transformation solutions and distributing their data and media all over the world to assist them in monetising their assets. For Indian publishers, broadcasters and gaming companies, we can provide them with our large inventory of data and media to help them reach their audiences and customers.

The pandemic has put several restrictions on live action sports, due to which there is a rise in the engagement of E-sports. Is Sportradar planning to explore that space and make investments?

We are definitely keeping an eye on e-sports. During the pandemic we invested heavily in e-sports because there were no active sports being played at stadiums, arenas and fields, so we had to look at virtual options. As a result, we offer the Bayes Esports Solutions, a subsidiary of Sportradar that focuses exclusively on this area.

Bayes Esports Solutions was established in 2019 as a joint venture between Sportradar and DOJO Madness. The Berlin-based organisation combines strong media rights acquisition and sports data expertise from Sportradar and sophisticated technical expertise in the world of esports from DOJO Madness.

AI and machine learning are being extensively used to draw data and leverage it appropriately. How have you kept pace on the technology front and what are the tools that you use?

AI and machine learning is the future and it is an area we are heavily investing in within all our business units. As an example, in integrity, we have added machine learning and AI to some of our solutions like our FDS (Fraud Detection System) and that was part of the reason why we are now able to offer the Universal FDS for free, because we have the capability of monitoring vast numbers of matches due to this advanced technology. At Sportradar, AI and machine learning are being extensively used to draw data and distribute it appropriately.

With the acquisition of InteractSport, what’s going to be your roadmap for India?

Growth in Asia is a priority for Sportradar, with a specific focus on India. We are looking to grow in these markets by engaging with the most popular sports, and the acquisition of InteractSport certainly gives us added capabilities in cricket. This will enable us to offer a wider range of products and services to Indian cricket as a powerhouse of world cricket. The growth of the overall sports industry in India and the appetite globally to be able to see it and engage with it is of great interest to us. Although we have a team working in India, we were about to open an office in Mumbai, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and this is something we are going to take forward to help contribute towards to the sports industry growth in India.