Sports data and technology provider Genius Sports has extended its exclusive partnership with Football DataCo, the business that manages data rights for the English Premier League.
Under the terms of the new deal, Genius extends its official partnership with the data rights organisation to 2025. It also expands the agreement to cover new areas such as Genius’ data tracking product.
Genius’ 2019 deal with Football DataCo
The previous partnership – first established in 2019 – granted Genius the exclusive rights to collect, license and distribute official live betting data from the EPL to its sportsbook clients. The deal also covers the English Football League (EFL) and Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL).
The new deal, which is set to expire at the conclusion of the 2024-25 season, will see the business distribute data from over 4,000 UK football fixtures per season.
As the official tracking data and analytics partner to the EPL, Genius Sports also expanded its partnership to include the EFL Championship and Championship Play-Off matches through its AI-powered Second Spectrum solution.
Genius’ tracking systems are to be installed at all remaining Championship grounds as a result.
“Most popular league in world sport”
“The Premier League is the most popular league in world sport and Genius Sports has created the fastest, most accurate and secure feed on UK football to power first-class products for sportsbooks around the world,” Genius CEO Mark Locke said.
“We are delighted to extend our partnership to continue to power innovation and now to expand it to include our suite of AI-powered Second Spectrum Tracking Data technology for the EFL Championship as well as the Premier League.”
Football DataCo general manager Adrian Ford hailed Genius and Second Spectrum for providing “first class data” and innovative solutions for its stakeholders.
“The technology is improving all the time, extending the creative use of data to improve the presentation of English and Scottish football,” Ford added.
Data rights battle
Football DataCo’s decision to grant exclusive access to its data rights to Genius has in the past been criticised by the supplier’s competitors as being anti-competitive.
In 2020, sports data and technology business Sportradar initiated legal proceedings against Genius and the data rights business. It argued the partnership amounted to a violation of UK and European Union Competition Law.
The parties resolved the dispute in 2022. An out of court settlement saw Genius grant Sportradar a sublicence access to a delayed secondary feed.
