Stats Perform has renewed its official media data deal with the English Premier League, Scottish Premier League and EFL Championship.
The data services company agreed the multi-year deal, whose length has not been divulged, with Football Data Company, the firm that manages the leagues’ collective data rights. Some additional betting rights were signed off by FDC’s official betting partner, Genius Sports.
The agreement grants Stats Perform the rights to collect detailed data for over 6,000 matches per season across the English Premier League, PL2, U18 Premier League, Scottish Premier League, EFL Championship, EFL League One and EFL League Two and distribute it data to media, fantasy operators and professional teams.
It also grants the company the rights to distribute official player tracking data to rights-holding broadcasters and official player market data to licensed sportsbooks and fantasy operators to power pre-game and in-play betting on player-specific statistics such as shots, passes and tackles.
For the first time, the company will also distribute the rights to a new suite of AI-powered data insights created through a partnership between FDC and tracking technology provider Second Spectrum, which is also the Official Tracking Partner for the NBA and MLS.
Stats Perform said the new AI products will produce “never-before-seen patterns and understanding” of the matches covered in the deal.
Stats Perform held the official betting data and media data rights to FDC content in the previous two rights cycles, but Genius Sports seized the betting rights in a five-year deal announced in 2019.
SportBusiness understands Genius allowed Stats Perform to carve out the player-specific betting partnership as any FDC data used for betting rights now falls under this pre-existing deal. These specialised player markets are thought to complement rather than compete with official data and trading offered by the firm.
Genius welcomed the Stats Perform deal, suggesting that the company’s expertise in creating player-specific betting products would encourage official data to be adopted more widely and ensure bookmakers have access to the best products.
Mark Locke, group chief executive of Genius Sports, said: “It’s great to have Stats Perform inside the official data tent. This deal keeps official data at the heart of betting on UK football.”
Genius Sport’s deal with FDC is the subject of a legal action from rival betting and data services company Sportradar. The latter claims the terms of the agreement, which placed the authority to sub-license betting rights to other data companies in Genius’ hands, places the company in a ‘super-dominant’ position which enables it to ‘foreclose the market’ to its competitors.
But sources at Genius said the Stats Perform deal showed the company is willing to work with competitors and encourage innovation.
Alex Rice, chief rights officer at Stats Perform, said: “Millions of English and Scottish football fans and bettors have enjoyed trusted media, broadcast, fantasy and betting experiences powered by Stats Perform’s Opta data for the past seven years.
“We are honoured that our investment in collecting and distributing the fastest, most accurate detailed event data with the utmost professionalism has again been recognised by Football Dataco, and are excited to use our trusted data as the foundation to drive even deeper connections to some of the world’s greatest teams and players, through our FDC Data Labs partnership.”
