Calls
Source: S&P Capital IQ transcripts via Xpressfeed · latest indexed call 2026-04-28 · generated 2026-07-28.
Latest call digest
Sportradar Group AG, Q1 2026 Earnings Call, Apr 28, 2026 · 2026-04-28T12:00:00
Q1 2026 — call held April 28, 2026. Sportradar moved the call a week earlier than planned. Craig Felenstein said the reason was to get the results out so the company could better capitalize on the opportunity provided by the current share price. The prepared remarks opened not with the quarter but with Carsten Koerl's rebuttal of recent short-seller reports, a $250 million enhanced open market repurchase under the $1 billion authorization, Koerl's stated intention to buy $10 million of stock personally, and the appointment of Sameer Deen as COO effective May 18.
What management put forward. Revenue of 347 million, up 11% year over year and 16% on a constant currency basis; adjusted EBITDA of 66 million at a 19% margin; free cash flow conversion of 67% against 54% a year ago; more than 75% of core betting clients now consuming IMG content, with management saying it expects to exceed the 25% IMG revenue synergy target. Full-year 2026 guidance was reaffirmed at 23% to 25% constant currency revenue growth, $1.56 billion to $1.58 billion reported, adjusted EBITDA of $390 million to $400 million, and 200 to 225 basis points of margin expansion. New in the quarter: restructuring charges of $13 million to $18 million over the remainder of the year, an explicitly slower U.S. market, and prediction-market revenue built into the back half of the guide.
Where the Q&A diverged. Allegations, not the quarter, drove most of the questions. Management walked through a top-down bridge for gray-market exposure — the exposed product lines are in the mid-40% of revenue, less U.S. revenue, less large global operators — landing at a low to mid-single-digit share, with Koerl adding that an AI system run against public market data could put the figure at a maximum of 12%. The second pressure point was the credibility of an unchanged guide after a soft start: marketing services declined, MTS revenue was hit by player-friendly outcomes even with turnover up 24%, and FX cost roughly five points of reported growth. Felenstein declined to give a Q2 number and declined to normalize the MTS outcome effect. Prediction markets was the third: across several analysts the answer held steady — discussions are mature, nothing is signed, and anything announced in the short term is already inside the guide.
Participant coverage from the latest call.
| Group | Participants | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Management | Operator; James Bombassei — Senior Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Finance, Sportradar Group AG; Carsten Koerl — Founder, CEO & Director, Sportradar Group AG; Craig Felenstein — Chief Financial Officer, Sportradar Group AG | 4 |
| Analysts | Ryan Sigdahl — Partner & Senior Research Analyst of Institutional Research, Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC, Research Division; Chad Beynon — MD, Head of US Research & Senior Gaming, Lodging and Theatres Analyst, Macquarie Research; Barry Jonas — MD & Senior Gaming Equity Analyst, Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division; Jeffrey Stantial — Director of Equity Research, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division; Shaun Kelley — MD in Americas Equity Research & Research Analyst, BofA Securities, Research Division; Michael Hickey — Senior Equity Analyst, The Benchmark Company, LLC, Research Division; Raymond Bowers — Equity Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division; Robin Farley — Managing Director and Research Analyst, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division; Samuel Nielsen — Analyst, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division; William Lampen — Director and Digital Gaming Analyst, BTIG, LLC, Research Division | 10 |
Curated latest-call exchanges; one row per analyst topic.
| Analyst | Firm | Topic | What changed in Q&A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Sigdahl | Craig-Hallum | Marketing services decline and the reaffirmed guide | Asked what happened in marketing services and what supports an unchanged full-year guide after a softer start. Felenstein called the line historically choppy, cited operators pulling back and holding spend for the World Cup, and named three supports for the guide: marketing recovery, IMG uptake, and back-half prediction-market revenue. |
| Ryan Sigdahl | Craig-Hallum | Black-market and gray-market revenue exposure | Asked management to quantify revenue from operators in illegal markets. Koerl said the company does not work with black-market operators and works only with licensed operators, then handed to Felenstein for the revenue bridge down to a low to mid-single-digit exposure. |
| Jeffrey Stantial | Stifel | Licensed B2B distributors reselling into unregulated markets | Asked whether B2B resellers selling into unregulated markets sit inside the low to mid-single-digit figure and, if not, how material those relationships are. The answer restated the top-down revenue bridge and added the maximum-12% simulation figure; the reseller channel itself was not sized. |
| Chad Beynon | Macquarie | Prediction-market ramp and commercial model | Asked which constituent — exchange, broker or market maker — matters most for a back-half ramp. Koerl distinguished exchange needs (ultra-low latency data and settlement) from market-maker needs (prediction models on deep data), and described the intended model as a fixed fee plus revenue share with a minimum guarantee, still in negotiation. |
| Shaun Kelley | BofA | Normalized MTS results and what changed in the outlook | Asked management to normalize the outcome-driven MTS shortfall and to lay out the puts and takes since last quarter. Felenstein did not give a normalized figure but did break the outlook change into three parts: a slower U.S. market, more prediction-market contribution, and better IMG cross-sell, with cost savings weighted to the back half. |
| Raymond Bowers | Wells Fargo | Second-quarter guidance and prediction-market cannibalization | Pressed on whether the company would give a Q2 number given how late in the quarter the call fell. Felenstein declined, saying the company does not guide quarterly, and pointed to marketing softness and U.S. weakness as the drivers of the Q1 gap. Koerl said cannibalization of online sports betting is small on client feedback and the TAM effect is larger. |
| Robin Farley | UBS | Prediction-market deal timing versus guidance | Asked whether announcements would be additive to guidance. Felenstein drew a clear line: anything announced in the short term should be assumed already included; anything later is additive. Koerl said discussions are at a mature stage but there is nothing to announce. |
| Robin Farley | UBS | Quantifying the EBITDA shortfall | Asked management to split the gap between sporting outcomes, FX and sports rights ex-IMG. Felenstein pointed to FX as the largest headwind and reiterated that margin still expanded; the sporting-outcome portion was not separately sized. |
| Michael Hickey | Benchmark | ICE sales-floor allegation | Asked Koerl to address the specific claim that sales staff were receptive to prospects from illegal markets. Koerl described it as a sting on a junior salesperson at a trade show, said the recording did not reflect all his statements, and argued a sales conversation is far from a contract given the subsequent KYC, license and sanctions checks. |
| William Lampen | BTIG | Recourse on B2B sublicensing, and customer renewals | Asked whether liability for a negative event sits with the B2B partner rather than Sportradar. Koerl used a Bloomberg analogy, said some B2B partners syndicate content without the company's awareness and are shut down when found, and characterized the bulk of pirated content as live match trackers rather than betting functionality. Felenstein said roughly two-thirds of revenue is fixed fee, about a third of which renews each year, and framed those renewals as back-half upside. |
Theme tracker
Themes are curator-classified across supplied calls.
| Theme | Status | Quarters mentioned | Read-through |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMG ARENA rights integration and revenue synergies | persisted | Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Announced in Q4 2024, closed in Q4 2025, and the single most consistent management talking point since. The framing has tightened from strategic rationale to a measurable 25% revenue synergy target, which management said in Q1 2026 it expects to exceed. It is also the reason the 2026 flow-through is lower than 2025's, a point Felenstein made when the Q4 2025 guide landed. |
| Prediction markets | emerged | Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | First raised by an analyst in Q2 2025 and management-led from Q3 2025 onward. The tone moved from conditional participation to a named driver inside guidance in three quarters, but through Q1 2026 no agreement had been announced. It is now the most-asked topic on the call and the least evidenced by contracts. |
| Margin expansion from a fixed, long-dated sports rights base | persisted | Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Present in every call reviewed, with the same mechanic each time: rights amortized straight-line against a growing revenue base. The 2023-2024 version was a promise of an inflection; from Q4 2024 it became a reported outcome. This is the most durable claim in the file and the one with the clearest track record behind it. |
| Managed Trading Services scale and trading outcomes | persisted | Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Turnover growth has been reported every quarter, but outcome sensitivity has surfaced three times in the window: the Q3 2023 revenue cut on favorite-heavy soccer results, a limited impact acknowledged in Q3 2025, and again in Q1 2026 on player-friendly February soccer. Management's answer each time is diversity of sports and normalization over time; the pattern is worth noting for a line described as low-volatility. |
| iGaming as an adjacent market | persisted | Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Framed as a Brazil test market for five consecutive calls, always with the same 360-degree acquisition-to-retention logic. In Q1 2026 the framing changed: a dedicated brand, Playradar, live across Latin America with a stated European, U.S. and Canadian rollout for the year, built organically with existing resources. |
| Buyback scale and the valuation-gap argument | persisted | Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | The authorization has escalated steadily — $200 million in Q4 2023, raised to EUR 300 million in Q3 2025, to $1 billion in Q4 2025, with a $250 million enhanced open market program and a stated personal purchase by the CEO in Q1 2026. Capital-allocation language has moved from investment-first to Felenstein saying there is currently no better use of capital than investing in Sportradar shares. |
| Gray-market exposure and data distribution controls | emerged | Q3 2025, Q1 2026 | First put to management as an aside in Q3 2025, when Koerl described a four-level compliance process. By Q1 2026 it dominated the call, came with a filed 6-K, a quantified revenue bridge and a direct rebuttal of the reports. A short history, but it now sits alongside guidance as the main thing analysts want resolved. |
| U.S. in-play conversion as the quantified growth lever | dropped | Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025 | For eight calls management put a number on it — roughly 35% of U.S. handle moving toward the 70% to 80% international rate, worth a stated amount of EBITDA per point converted. Neither the Q4 2025 nor the Q1 2026 call returned to it, and no analyst asked. Prediction markets appear to have taken its place as the U.S. growth story. |
| Taiwan Lottery and the managed platform business | dropped | Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024 | A named growth proof-point through 2023 and then purely a lapping comparison through 2024, after which it disappears from both remarks and questions. Read as a one-off installation rather than a repeatable platform channel, which is roughly how management came to describe it. |
Guidance ledger
Quotes, calls, and speakers are source-verified; outcomes are curator-classified.
| Verbatim guidance | Call | Speaker | Curator outcome | Outcome note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “As such, we still anticipate constant currency revenue growth of 23% to 25%, which at current FX rates is expected to be between $1.56 billion and $1.58 billion reported.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q1 2026 Earnings Call, Apr 28, 2026 · 2026-04-28T12:00:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | Reaffirmed at the same range set on the Q4 2025 call. Q1 reported growth was 11%, with management attributing the gap to FX, marketing timing and slower U.S. growth and pointing to Q2 and Q3 as the strongest growth quarters. |
| “We expect to drive significant operating leverage on this revenue growth with adjusted EBITDA growth of 34% to 37% on a constant currency basis, which at current FX rates is expected to be $390 million to $400 million reported with approximately 200 to 225 basis points of margin expansion in 2026.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q1 2026 Earnings Call, Apr 28, 2026 · 2026-04-28T12:00:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | Unchanged from the Q4 2025 guide. Q1 delivered slight margin expansion, with the cost-out program weighted to the back half. |
| “restructuring charges of between $13 million and $18 million during the remainder of the year” | Sportradar Group AG, Q1 2026 Earnings Call, Apr 28, 2026 · 2026-04-28T12:00:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | First restructuring charge quantified since the 2023 workforce reduction. Management said some of the resulting savings are already factored into back-half margin guidance. |
| “we anticipate revenue of EUR 1.56 billion to EUR 1.58 billion” | Sportradar Group AG, Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Mar 03, 2026 · 2026-03-03T13:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | The first formal 2026 revenue guide; reaffirmed unchanged on the Q1 2026 call. |
| “we will continue to focus on converting more of every dollar to cash flow and anticipate growing our free cash flow conversion rate above the 56% we delivered in 2025” | Sportradar Group AG, Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Mar 03, 2026 · 2026-03-03T13:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | Q1 2026 conversion was 67% versus 54% a year earlier, and management repeated the above-56% expectation for the full year. |
| “current expectations for the consolidated company is an additional 250 basis points of margin expansion in 2026” | Sportradar Group AG, Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 05, 2025 · 2025-11-05T13:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | The formal guide issued one quarter later was 200 to 225 basis points, below this initial indication. Felenstein attributed the lower flow-through mainly to consolidating IMG revenue at close to base-business margins and to one-off Q4 2025 savings. |
| “We now anticipate revenues of at least EUR 1.290 billion, representing year-over-year growth of at least 17% and adjusted EBITDA of at least EUR 290 million, representing growth of at least 30% versus 2024.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 05, 2025 · 2025-11-05T13:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | kept | The Q4 2025 call reported full-year revenue of EUR 1.3 billion, up 17%, and record adjusted EBITDA of EUR 297 million, up 33%. |
| “We currently anticipate 2026 revenue growth, including IMG, to accelerate to 23% to 25% range on a constant currency basis.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 05, 2025 · 2025-11-05T13:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | Carried forward unchanged into the formal Q4 2025 guide and reaffirmed again in Q1 2026. |
| “We now anticipate revenues of at least EUR 1.278 billion, representing year-over-year growth of at least 16%. And we now anticipate adjusted EBITDA of at least EUR 284 million, representing growth of at least 28% versus 2024.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Aug 05, 2025 · 2025-08-05T12:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | kept | Raised again in Q3 2025 and exceeded on the full year, with reported revenue of EUR 1.3 billion and adjusted EBITDA of EUR 297 million. |
| “For the full year, 2025, we anticipate total company revenue of at least EUR 1.273 billion, representing year-over-year growth of at least 15%” | Sportradar Group AG, Q4 2024 Earnings Call, Mar 19, 2025 · 2025-03-19T12:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | kept | The opening 2025 guide, excluding IMG. It was held in Q1 2025 despite FX, raised in Q2 and again in Q3, and finished at EUR 1.3 billion. |
| “As a reminder, during our Investor Day, we laid out 3-year targets, including 15% revenue CAGR through 2027, which when combined with our stable cost base, will drive margins to 27% by 2027 and over 30% longer term.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q1 2025 Earnings Call, May 12, 2025 · 2025-05-12T12:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | pending | Management said on the Q4 2025 call that 2025 ran ahead of year-one expectations against these targets. Two years remain in the window and IMG has since been added to the base. |
| “We now anticipate revenues of at least EUR 1.09 billion, an increase of EUR 20 million versus our prior guidance and up 24% versus 2023. And we now anticipate adjusted EBITDA of at least EUR 216 million, up EUR 12 million versus our prior guidance and growth of at least 29% versus 2023.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q3 2024 Earnings Call, Nov 07, 2024 · 2024-11-07T13:00:00 | Craig Felenstein | kept | The Q4 2024 call reported full-year revenue of EUR 1.1 billion, up 26%, and adjusted EBITDA of EUR 222 million, up 33%. |
| “We now anticipate revenues of at least EUR 1.07 billion and adjusted EBITDA of at least EUR 204 million or growth of at least 22% versus 2023 on both the top and bottom line.” | Sportradar Group AG, Q2 2024 Earnings Call, Aug 13, 2024 · 2024-08-13T12:30:00 | Craig Felenstein | kept | Raised again in Q3 2024 and beaten on the full year on both lines. |
Q&A pressure map
Question counts and firms are curator tallies; analyst coverage shown above.
| Topic | Questions | Firms | Pressure / response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short-seller allegations, gray-market exposure and data piracy (Q1 2026) | 6 | Craig-Hallum, Truist, Stifel, Benchmark, Wells Fargo, BTIG | The single heaviest line of questioning on the latest call, covering revenue exposure to unregulated markets, regulator and league reaction, the ICE sales-floor recording, the claim that profits come from lower-tier leagues, and where liability sits when a B2B partner sublicenses content. Management answered each directly and quantified exposure, but one question went unanswered on its own terms: Stifel asked specifically whether licensed B2B resellers distributing into unregulated markets are inside the low to mid-single-digit figure and how material those relationships are, and the reply re-ran the same top-down revenue bridge without sizing the reseller channel. |
| Prediction markets (Q1 2026) | 6 | Macquarie, Truist, Stifel, Wells Fargo, UBS, JPMorgan | Asked from six angles — ramp timing, which constituent matters most, state-level legal limits, marketing and user-acquisition traction, cannibalization of online sports betting, and where the revenue lands at maturity. The answers were consistent and consistently pre-contractual: leagues have granted clearance, product is ready, the model is a fixed fee plus revenue share with a minimum guarantee, and announcements are expected soon. Felenstein's clarification that near-term announcements are already inside guidance is the most useful modelling detail given. |
| Guidance credibility after a soft Q1 (Q1 2026) | 5 | Craig-Hallum, BofA, UBS, JPMorgan | Analysts came at the same question repeatedly: what supports an unchanged full-year guide, can the MTS outcome effect be normalized, how much of the EBITDA gap is FX versus sport results, and how the FX headwind phases through the year. Management gave the FX cadence and the three-part bridge on what changed since the last guide, but declined both to quantify the sporting-outcome impact and to give any second-quarter figure. |
| IMG synergy phasing and durability (Q4 2025) | 5 | Craig-Hallum, UBS, BTIG, Stifel, Needham | On the prior call the pressure sat almost entirely on IMG: whether the outperformance was IMG or the core business, how fast the content ramps across the wider client base, where in the product mix the 25% synergy shows up, the phasing of revenue versus cost synergies through 2026, and whether revenue upside is already fully baked. Felenstein was clear that revenue synergies are not fully baked while cost synergies are easier to identify, and that 2027 depends on which IMG content the company chooses to keep. |
Language shifts
Only language evidence verified against the referenced component is shown.
| Observation | Verbatim evidence | Call ID | Component |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prepared remarks acquired a defensive register that has no precedent in the prior eleven calls. The CEO opened by naming and rejecting the reports before turning to results. | “Before we get into the results, I want to address directly the recent self-interested reports published by known short sellers with the intent of driving down our company's stock price.” | 1995730448 | 2 |
| The guidance verb changed. The three prior calls used variants of raising the outlook; this one reaffirms it and pairs the reaffirmation with an acknowledgement of headwinds. | “We are reaffirming our full year 2026 outlook. While there have been some short-term headwinds, there are also a variety of opportunities for the remainder of the year that we expect to capitalize on such as further IMG synergies, the prediction market ecosystem and global customer renewals.” | 1995730448 | 3 |
| U.S. market language turned explicitly negative for the first time in the window. Prior calls described U.S. growth as rapid or strong; here it is a downgrade relative to the guide set eight weeks earlier. | “First and foremost, the U.S. market growth is definitely slower than it was when we were speaking after our fourth quarter results.” | 1995730448 | 29 |
| Cost language moved from managing headcount growth to initiating cuts. The prior four calls framed efficiency as using existing people better; this one names a program with a quantified charge. | “At the same time, we have recently initiated steps to further streamline our business and drive additional cost efficiencies.” | 1995730448 | 3 |
| Prediction-market framing shifted from conditional to assertive in two quarters. In Q3 2025 participation was contingent on how the market developed. | “Should the market continue to develop in the way that aligns with those standards, we see the potential for prediction markets to complement our existing business and create incremental opportunity for Sportradar.” | 1966803230 | 2 |
| By Q1 2026 the same topic is stated as leadership, and the sentence introducing it also concedes the U.S. slowdown — the two are now presented together. | “we see prediction markets as a significant opportunity where Sportradar is uniquely positioned to lead given our premium content, global scale and unmatched product portfolio” | 1995730448 | 2 |
| A new qualifier attached to Managed Trading Services, a line management has otherwise described as insulated from single-event outcomes by its diversity. | “While turnover was strong, our revenues in the quarter were impacted by player-friendly outcomes.” | 1995730448 | 2 |
The call history supports the operating case and complicates the timing case. Nine of the last ten quantified guides were met or beaten, and the margin mechanic management has described since 2023 — long-dated rights amortized straight-line against a growing base — has delivered. What is new in Q1 2026 is that the growth story rests on two things the transcripts do not yet evidence: prediction-market revenue that is inside the guide but not under contract, and IMG synergies now running ahead of a target that was itself only set one quarter earlier. Against that, the reliably quantified U.S. in-play conversion lever has gone unmentioned for two calls.