Transcripts
Sportradar Group AG's management answers for the business every quarter. These are the exchanges that explain it best — verbatim, from the call transcripts preserved in Sources. Each link opens the full transcript at that page in a new tab.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call — Q1 FY2026
The most recent call, and the one where management had to defend the business model line by line against short-seller allegations while re-affirming guidance. · Open the full transcript →
The clearest read on whether the IMG rights actually cross-sell: uptake rates across the existing client base.
Carsten Koerl (Chief Executive Officer): It is this scale and expertise as well as the depth of our global client base that is enabling us to make great progress integrating the IMG rights portfolio and capitalizing on revenue synergies. Demand across our global client base has been strong with more than 75% of our core betting clients now consuming IMG content, including all Tier 1 operators. Of our clients who were previously not customers of IMG, nearly 60% are now purchasing IMG content from us.
p. 9 · Read in context →
Why margins are supposed to expand mechanically — straight-line rights amortisation plus a newly announced cost programme.
Craig Felenstein (Chief Financial Officer): Overall, we continue to anticipate meaningful margin expansion over the long term, given the inherent scale we have in our business and our long-term cost visibility, including the benefits of sports rights being amortized on a straight-line basis.
At the same time, we have recently initiated steps to further streamline our business and drive additional cost eficiencies. We anticipate these steps, which are expected to result in restructuring charges of between $13 million and $18 million during the remainder of the year, will drive additional operating leverage and optimize our organizational structure for sustained value creation.
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Guidance philosophy after a soft Q1: the three things management is leaning on to hold the full-year number.
Craig Felenstein (CFO); Ryan Sigdahl (Craig-Hallum Capital Group): When you think about the guidance for the full year and what we expect, we do expect marketing services to grow definitely more in line with what it's done historically, excluding any onetime items. Some of the other things that we look at with regards to guidance for the full year that we are – gives us confidence that we'll ultimately get to where we guided to at the start of the year, one would be the marketing that we just talked about. Two would be the continued success that we're seeing with IMG and how it's resonating with our customers.
And the third and probably the biggest is we have really good sight lines right now, we think, with regards to some prediction market revenue opportunity that's going to happen in the predominant in the back half of the year. So those 3 things give us confidence that we're going to hit our guidance for 2026.
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The hardest question of the call — short-seller claims on unregulated markets — answered with a revenue-exposure range.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Jeffrey Stantial (analyst): The vast majority of our clients do not operate in unregulated markets, take a Flutter or take an Entain or take a FanDuel. We subtract this, and we are coming then down to a number which is low to mid-single digit. That's where we sit. In some cases, if you let now an AI system running through this, and of course, we did simulations with public market data, that might drop into the range of a maximum of 12%. We believe it's a low to mid-single-digit number of our total revenues, which are exposed. I hope that clarifies the situation.
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Management's case that prediction markets expand the addressable market faster than they cannibalise sportsbook volume.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Raymond Bowers (Wells Fargo): So that is a big population, which can now get an opinion on a sport event and monetize on this. That is in principally an expansion of the TAM. We might also discuss there is a TAM expansion because the age is dropping to 18. That's at the moment what we see. So we see that this additional market access is by far outpacing whatever cannibalization effect is in there. […] What I can tell you from talks with the CEOs of our clients is that the cannibalization is pretty small here. So looking to this, we see an outpacing TAM. We see an expansion opportunity for us, and this is something which excites us.
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The contract structure in one answer: two-thirds fixed fee, one-third variable, with roughly a third of fixed repricing yearly.
Craig Felenstein (CFO); Shaun Kelley (Bank of America): So when you think about our company, about 2/3 of our revenue are fixed fee, 1/3 are variable out of the 2/3 that are fixed. Traditionally, about 1/3 comes up every single year, and that's not obviously on January 1. It comes up throughout the course of the year.
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Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2025
The annual call: full-year economics, the first full read on IMG integration, and the 2026 framework the company is now being judged against. · Open the full transcript →
The stated synergy target for IMG — 25% revenue uplift — and the flywheel logic behind it.
Carsten Koerl (Chief Executive Officer): The customer response has been strong with the majority of our clients, including all of the tier one partners, having already signed on the IMG data odds and AV products. This early and significant progress puts us firmly on track to unlock anticipated revenue synergies of 25% for IMG in 2026. On the product side, we have successfully integrated IMG content into our core product suite and are on track to expand it into our next-gen offerings, including Foresight, Micro Markets, Player Props, and the Virtual Live Match Tracker over the course of the year. This rapid integration and uptake validates our flywheel. We can monetize this content across more customers and products to unlock significant accretive revenue growth.
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Scale in two numbers: matches streamed and $52bn of managed-trading turnover, which is what the odds and trading products run on.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): Last year, we streamed over 525,000 matches, which is 100,000 more than we streamed just two years ago. In 2026, we anticipate to stream over 700,000 matches across our global footprint. Switching to our Managed Trading Services, we continue to scale this business in related markets around the globe, we see continued strong momentum ahead. Turnover for 2025 was up 26% year-over-year to $52 billion, making us a top bookmaker globally.
p. 9 · Read in context →
Full-year 2025 in one passage — 17% revenue growth converting into 33% EBITDA growth and 290bp of margin.
Craig Felenstein (Chief Financial Officer): Total company revenue for the full year of $1.3 billion increased $183 million or 17% compared with 2024, driven in large part by higher uptake from our existing partners, strong U.S. market growth, record Managed Trading Services turnover, and contributions related to IMG content. Our growth was broad-based with strength across our product portfolio, including betting and gaming content, Managed Trading Services, and our marketing and media services business.
We generated strong gains both in the U.S. and globally with the U.S. up 23% year-onyear, now 25% of our total revenue, and the rest of the world up 15%. Importantly, the steps we have taken to align our cost base with the revenue opportunities are enabling us to deliver significant operating leverage. Record Adjusted EBITDA of $297 million for the year increased $74 million or 33% compared with a year ago. The company increased full year Adjusted EBITDA margins by over 290 basis points to 23%.
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Unit economics of the iGaming push: an iGaming player is worth about 4x a sports bettor, with sports betting as the acquisition channel.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Chad C. Beynon (Macquarie Capital): This is exactly the opportunity which we pick because we see we have the distribution, we have the iPlayer, we have the live scores, we have the match trackers on the bookmaker side, and we can connect this and convert. Like we all know and like we see it in the handle numbers, a client gets roughly around about 4 times the value for an iGaming player comparing it to a sports bettor. Sports betting is used as the acquisition channel, and here it closes to the 360 degree because we hook it up with our ads for the acquisition. That is the scale.
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Where Sportradar thinks it can sell into prediction markets — real-time pricing data for market makers, not just feeds.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Shaun Kelley (Bank of America): The real interesting thing is the live development in that sector. In-play parlays, live opportunities, that needs real-time data. Like we all know, this is where we can monetize best with the real-time data. The market maker segment is specifically interesting because they need real-time data to price this, and they need the models to lay the liquidity there. Even more, and the real goal is, can we predict the next movement better than anybody else? We can because we are sitting on this huge knowledge, we are sitting on the liquidity, and we are sitting on the deep data in real time.
Our investment here, for example, in the foundation model, where we can predict the next pixel, and we do this now seven seconds for an NBA match, is super helpful to predict potential moves and to underlie them with liquidity. That is exactly where the sweet spot sits. As you hear, that makes us very optimistic that we can help the market makers with a very superior product.
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Buyback mechanics stated plainly: a price-sensitive grid, with opportunistic top-ups.
Craig Felenstein (CFO); Jordan Bender (analyst): When you think about how we buy back our shares, we predominantly buy back according to a grid. We have done that historically. We are opportunistic on top of that, like we were with our secondary buyback in the middle of last year.
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A rare piece of self-limiting sizing — prediction markets framed as tens of millions, not hundreds.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Bernie McTernan (Needham): we expect an uplift opportunity in the $ tens of millions, not in the $ hundreds of millions, from prediction markets. Looking on the global scale, yes, we have to focus to keep that machine running, which is internationally significantly bigger than inside the U.S.
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Which half of the IMG synergy case is bankable: cost savings are identifiable, revenue synergies depend on client dialogue.
Craig Felenstein (CFO); Bernie McTernan (Needham): Sure. I would say we are not saying that our revenue synergies are fully baked in. Obviously, a lot of this comes down to what sort of content our customers wanna take, what kind of products we develop that we can ultimately sell to our customers. I would say there is definitely some additional revenue upside that can be had from an IMG perspective, depending on the dialogue that we have with our clients. On the cost side, I think I would not say that they are baked into 2026, but I would say that they are easier to identify.
p. 34 · Read in context →
Q4 and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2024
The call where the IMG ARENA acquisition and the MLB renewal were laid out, together with the clearest statement of how Sportradar underwrites sports rights. · Open the full transcript →
The IMG ARENA acquisition announced — the deal that reshapes the rights portfolio.
Carsten Koerl (Chief Executive Officer): As you may have already seen this morning, we announced that we are further expanding our leading global content portfolio as we entered into an agreement with Endeavor and WME-IMG to acquire IMG ARENA and its global sports betting rights portfolio. I am incredibly excited about this acquisition, which enhances our footprint in some of the most bet-upon sports, including tennis, soccer, and basketball, and will deliver significant value to our clients, partners, and shareholders. The deal, once closed, is expected to be immediately accretive to our business and margins.
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MLB takes equity alongside a renewal; management ties rights discipline to the confidence to buy IMG's portfolio.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): As part of the agreement, MLB has also taken an equity stake in Sportradar, further solidifying our long-term partnership. The disciplined approach we have taken with our existing sports rights and the strong returns we are generating is what gave us confidence in the opportunity to acquire the portfolio of rights from IMG ARENA.
p. 5 · Read in context →
What was actually acquired, sized: 70+ rightsholders, ~39,000 data events, and 70% concentrated in the three biggest betting sports.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): Maximizing the value of high-demand content for our clients and league partners is what we do best, and this portfolio, comprised of relationships with over 70 rightsholders and covering approximately 39,000 oficial data events and 30,000 streaming events across 14 global sports on six continents, provides a variety of growth avenues. Importantly, approximately 70% of these rights are spread across the top 3 sports for global betting turnover, basketball, soccer, and tennis, greatly enhancing our status as the No. 1 content provider in core betting sports while also expanding our content offerings in emerging live betting sports.
p. 5 · Read in context →
The unusual consideration: Endeavor pays Sportradar to take the portfolio on.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): Instead, Endeavor will be providing financial consideration of $225 million, including cash compensation of $125 million to Sportradar and up to 100 million to certain sports rightsholders, which will reduce our future obligations.
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How trading data feeds the advertising business — 80 million bettors' behaviour lowering client acquisition cost.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): MTS has value outside the pure trading and risk management, providing us with unique insights into bettors across hundreds of books. By managing the bets of 80 million unique bettors last year alone, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of their preferences and dynamics. This insight informs our ads business and our ability to target, acquire, and engage sportsbook customers at a lower acquisition cost than other peers.
p. 8 · Read in context →
The distribution argument for the deal — 800 bookmakers, 900 media companies — and the ATP precedent for monetising acquired rights better.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Ryan Sigdahl (Craig-Hallum Capital Group): One is the strategic one. The second one is the commercial one. Looking to the strategic, we scale and we are the premium provider for the B2B sports, so that makes us even stronger. Looking to the coverage, we expand the coverage, and we do this in our key sports.
That's tennis, that's basketball, that's soccer. That's very complementary. Looking to our ability, and you touched on this, we saw what has happened with ATP, which we took from IMG beginning of 2024. We managed this property significantly better, and that is given the scale which we have.
We have 800 bookmakers. We have 900 media companies connected to this machine. And this is a well-oiled machine. We are global from a footprint, and we simply have to leverage on this. Looking now to the commercials, the deal is accretive to the revenues, obviously. It is accretive to the margin, and it's accretive to cash flow. So, the ROI which we deliver with this deal is sensational, and that is the reason why we are so excited about it.
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Pressed on buying a loss-making asset, Carsten sets out the rights underwriting test and the ~$100m spent repricing deals.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Robin M. Farley (UBS): We look to each and every right. We look to the revenues, what they generate.
And we looked to our upselling abilities and the cross-selling abilities. We looked into can we use this content if we put it in our engine to get more revenue channels than they have. And then we're coming to a picture and saying, well, we believe, with this content, we can generate those revenues. And that was the first criteria.
Second was is this accretive to our EBITDA? That is a very, very clear point of decision and saying if we are doing something which is not accretive, we are not interested. And that's the reason why we did the deal. So, it's accretive to our EBITDA and it's accretive to the cash. We needed some money to repair some deals, only a few, which are probably not in the current market from a pricing perspective, and that's what you see in the segments.
We said around about 100 million has been used in prepayments to the leagues to get those deals more in line with market conditions that we can monetize on them.
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Capital allocation stated as a ranked test: reinvest, then M&A, both gated on margin accretion, then buybacks.
Craig Felenstein (Chief Financial Officer); David Katz (Jefferies): But I will say this, it is always one of three options that we have. We are always looking at ways to invest in our existing core assets. Given the high margins we have in our existing business, we want to continue to expand the margins in our existing business, and we're not going to jeopardize that by putting too much money back into the business. Same goes for any M&A opportunity.
It has to be margin-accretive for us to do it. So, if we can't find either of those two things, then we will go ahead and return capital to shareholders. And because of the cash we have, we do have the ability to do both.
p. 28 · Read in context →
Q3 2021 Earnings Call — Q3 FY2021
The first calls as a public company, and still the best zero-to-one explanation of the model — rights, liquidity, MTS pricing power — alongside the landmark NBA renewal. · Open the full transcript →
Why the global business dwarfs the US one: soccer handle versus NFL handle, stated in euros.
Carsten Koerl (Chief Executive Officer): Soccer is the most bet on sport in the world with a handle of 850 billion euros each year, far exceeding the handle of American sports, such as the NFL, which is 41.87 billion annually.
p. 8 · Read in context →
The exclusivity philosophy, tested against the NFL loss: exclusive only where the economics work, and no betting client lost.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): I'll close my discussion around the data rights deals by addressing our position on exclusive data.
We seek exclusive data deals only when the economics make sense. But we also have access to enormous amount of data that we are able to monetize, even if we don't have exclusive rights. I'm pleased to say that we have not lost a single betting client due to not having the exclusive rights to NFL data. We have kept our position as the preferred supplier for every U.S.
betting operator and did not lose any existing contracts.
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What Managed Trading Services actually is, and the customer count behind it — the base for a product now central to the model.
Carsten Koerl (CEO): Our MTS offering is a sophisticated, turnkey trading, risk, live odds, and liability management solution that helps betting operators boosting margins and profits while increasing eficiency and managing risks.
Overall, we grew our MTS customers from 158 globally in the third quarter of 2020 to 192 globally, this quarter.
p. 10 · Read in context →
The rationale for the landmark NBA renewal — live betting, not pre-match, is what the rights were bought for.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); David Karnovsky (J.P. Morgan): Yes. Good question, David. So, this deal was a long effort, and we discussed it since quite a while with our partners, and we're super happy that we could announce it today. The U.S.
is undoubtedly the biggest growth opportunity which we see in front of us, and we want to focus on creating value, so investments in the United States are our top priority. The NBA is the top betting sports in the United States by pre-match, but more important by live. Live is something that we see main trend in the United States, and we see a lot of opportunities to monetize here with our live odds and with our managed trading services products. This was a main motivation.
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On leagues taking equity: treated as an exception for the NBA, not a template — a commitment worth checking against later deals.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Jason Bazinet (Citi): As a very general statement, I think you will not see too many equity deals from Sportradar, like we did it now with the NBA. The NBA is our most important partner, was our most important partner from the scope and from the size, and also looking to the extensive partnership. So, that was a very clear step for us to do this, to group with our partner where we enjoyed in the last seven years a sensational cooperation.
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The core economic engine explained: aggregated betting liquidity becomes pricing power through AI-set fair prices.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Shaun Kelley (Bank of America Merrill Lynch): The more tickets and liquidity you aggregate, the better you are in a position to use AI to compile what we call a fair price. And that gives you over the long term, if you have more liquidity and diversity, pricing power for this.
I think that's not disputed from one of the players in the market. It's only the question how quickly can you reach a position if your pricing power is big enough to generate alpha with the prices.
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The insourcing threat answered on its merits — operators build only where a supplier cannot serve them better.
Carsten Koerl (CEO); Shaun Kelley (Bank of America Merrill Lynch): I think, whenever we can provide superior service to our clients, the bookmakers, they will not hesitate to take it. And there are some bookmakers which simply might see that there is an edge if they have their own platform. I think in a very general way, the platform is a software business. And the sports betting operators which have to do the branding, the marketing, the licensing, a lot of daily operations, I think there are very qualified companies doing software development and managing the modules like I just said it to you. That's our opinion about the debate of insourcing and outsourcing. I think it's simply weighted by who can provide the more eficient and better service that our clients can have a better offer and be more profitable. And this is the decision point.
p. 24 · Read in context →
More calls
Q3 2025 Earnings Call — Q3 FY2025 · 36 pages · Where the IMG ARENA close and the initial 23%-25% constant-currency 2026 growth framework were first put on the table. · Open →
Q2 2025 Earnings Call — Q2 FY2025 · 33 pages · Go here for the pre-close IMG regulatory path and the mid-year check on the Investor Day targets. · Open →
Q1 2025 Earnings Call — Q1 FY2025 · 32 pages · The first call after the April 2025 Investor Day, restating the medium-term growth and margin targets in Q&A. · Open →
Q3 2024 Earnings Call — Q3 FY2024 · 31 pages · The quarter management points to as the operating-leverage inflection, with the ATP and NBA rights costs already in the base. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2023 · 34 pages · The investment-year defence: guiding through the first full year of stepped-up NBA and ATP rights expense. · Open →
Q3 2023 Earnings Call — Q3 FY2023 · 36 pages · The quarter the renewed NBA deal economics began hitting the P&L, with management setting expectations for the cost step-up. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2022 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2022 · 26 pages · Carsten's value-chain ladder — data, then predictive models, then trading, then platform — plus the ATP rights win and the Vaix AI acquisition. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2021 · 38 pages · The original post-IPO guidance framework and segment reporting, useful as the baseline the later margin story is measured from. · Open →