SportsGrid on connecting operators and media giants with the right consumers

“We take [game] data and allow it to create content,” is how co-founder of betting broadcaster SportsGrid Louis Maione describes the two-year-old platform. It sits comfortably between the consumer and the betting operator as a sports media broadcaster, producing unique post-game content based around a number of data points.

SportsGrid has generated interest from within the betting sector and is rumored to be sought after by a number of operators and media groups. It currently partners with FanDuel, producing unique content for the firm from a studio at its Meadowlands sportsbook.

It has also been previously tied to Sportradar, having been tasked with producing a 24-hour betting network for the data giant, in a deal that also provided SportsGrid with raw game data for a number of leagues.

As tends to happen in such an insular industry as this, the Sportradar contract afforded the broadcaster even more than it ever expected as the firm’s SVP of business development Jason Sukhraj shifted over to join SportsGrid as its chief commercial officer in October.

“Jason was on my hit list and it was because he was connected from a data standpoint by doing what he did at Sportradar,” Maione says to EGR North America. “He was an integral part of the process and the team in not only his ability to deliver the message but in understanding the gambling world from a data standpoint and his relationships would benefit us in the future.”

Having established who the ones to watch are in the still nascent industry, Maione has his eye on a few others he is keen to poach, including one former FanDuel executive. “We have our eyes on a couple of different, very highly talented and highly motivated, brilliant minds,” he notes. “It helps them climb the corporate ladder. It puts a bid on them and gives them some leverage, and I think they see something very different in sports betting.”

Investing in engineering talent is very high on Maione and his partner Jeremy Stein’s list, particularly as the firm rounds-off its latest funding round and seeks to invest the $5m to $7.5m it just raised back into operations.

Jeremy Stein, SportsGrid

“Remember we only have 14 full-time employees and we produce all of this content,” says Stein, who operates the tech-driven side of the business. The money will allow the firm to work on a number of partnerships it hasn’t had the manpower to facilitate until now.

Marketing push

Elsewhere, Stein and Maione are eager to market the brand directly to consumers and build on the recognition it has gained itself within the industry. They are considering advertising with regional sports networks (RSNs) in the major betting states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

“We’d like to spend a little bit of money on marketing to tell the world who SportsGrid is. We’re doing a really good job of marketing ourselves within the industry, but not so much outside to consumers and that’s because we haven’t had the resources. To an extent that will happen naturally. If you think about the AP model across the internet, we’re leveraging other people’s traffic to tell the world we exist,” says Stein.

The SportsGrid model is markedly different to those many would consider its competitors. Maione gives subscription-based picks app The Action Network as an example of what is considered a competitor of SportsGrid.
“They are not, they’re our friends because if you understand the business they are editorial and app driven picks. They sell picks and are building that theScore type app,” he says.

Few, if any, are producing their own audio and video content around game data, and Maione considers those networks and media outlets that are producing their own shows as investing too much capital.

“We’re that connective tissue and we can hand that over the feed for free, and they can make it their own if they want a bigger piece or if they want to rev share, put it up on your property and now we’re their defacto gambling and fantasy content outlet,” he notes.

“We’re connecting them to the operator in a way that is engaging the audience and giving them what they want. We’re also the connective tissue between leagues and their customers and the leagues and operators.”

Eyeing up the competition

Maione considers Vegas-based online betting outlet VSiN to be its closest competitor in terms of the content it produces, particularly as the site has restructured its broadcasting schedule to include new sports betting content.
However, for now SportsGrid is the only 24-hour network, playing 18 hours of original content filmed in its New York and New Jersey studios.

The firm is an official partner of the NBA and is primed to extend its reach to additional leagues. Maione says he is looking to MLB next, then MLS, SFL and the PGA Tour. “We want to be their de facto content providers,” he insists.
These direct deals between leagues and media outlets are seemingly becoming more prominent, as The Action Network signed on to provide NASCAR with betting content as the league moves into the real-money betting realm with its Betgenius-powered product.

And this is where Maione considers the firm to be a sweet spot and in demand all across the industry. “It’s the CNBC of the gambling and fantasy world, but we’re a tech media company that is the convergence of content, media and data and we sit with the connective tissue between operators and publishers. We solve their problems,” he says.

With it being in such an optimal position in the flourishing industry, is SportsGrid looking to be bought or perhaps secure a single operator partner to provide exclusive content for?

Stein and Maione grin at the question. The prospect of a buy-out could certainly be on the cards further down the line but for the very young company immediate plans include revenue and operational growth, and certainly bringing on more partners to supply content to.

“Right now we’re going to grow as fast as we can. We have tremendous assets. We’re a private company with investors so ultimately there will need to be some exit at some point in the future but that’s not something we’re focusing on right now,” says Stein.

The pair are adamant an affiliate-style model (like that of The Action Network) is off the cards, as they believe the CPA and revenue share models are difficult to break into when you have the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings, and excluding the customers acquired via DFS from their affiliate models.

“We’d be selling to the other 20% of the market,” Stein says of the firm’s RotoExperts DFS content product. Stein also considers that DFS only makes up 20% of the company’s content these days.

“Affiliate marketing is a very crowded industry and we believe you’ll have to burn through a lot of page views to actually capture the consumer. We would just be giving away valuable inventory for free which we are not willing to do,” he adds.

Growth prospects

Instead, the pair considers multiple deals with operators and media firms to be its best opportunity for growth in the short term.

“We’ll work with MGM and we’ll work with [the likes of] DraftKings, PointsBet and bet365, and 365 is a company that will come in hard to this market. I think they are analyzing the opportunity [at this point]. In New Jersey alone there are 20 operators and we can work with any group at any time and if one doesn’t like the deal, we’ll go on to the next,” Maione says with confidence.

Louis Maione, SportsGrid

But it is also targeting media firms that have yet to expand into the betting space. Stein says: “Part of the way we look at the media landscape is there are thousands of publishers that now need exposure to sports gambling and we’re almost the Associated Press of sports wagering video so we’re trying to go out and add gambling tabs to their websites that create page views. We’re not necessarily competitive, we’re very complementary to a lot of these groups.”

It is certainly an attractive proposition for a major broadcaster that is still unsure on how to enter the space and perhaps slightly put off by the potential risk and huge investment required to partner directly with an operator.

It is likely though that others like SportsGrid will emerge from the periphery of the betting landscape, but the firm has the benefit of already having secured relationships early on in the industry’s existence. And Maione’s finance background is sure to give the start-up a boost in securing additional capital. He acknowledges the widespread interest in the early stage betting industry from across the finance and media spaces.

At present SportsGrid has a reach of 50 million consumers via its technology. It is in the process of building an ad-tech platform to produce consumer profiles to send targeted content to users, similar to Netflix or YouTube’s model for suggested viewing.

The content is created using predictive data produced for every game. The model cuts down on production costs as only a commentator and engineer are required to produce a show.

Which is why Maione and Stein are considering expanding their physical reach at the Meadowlands to include an additional studio on the roof of FanDuel’s Meadowland’s venue, offering a view of the Manhattan skyline and the entire Meadowlands estate.

Maione’s dream extends to offering out the space to private events, offering a chance to market the SportsGrid brand to high-profile players and consumers in the sports and betting spaces. The studio could also act as a space for regional networks to film their own content and pay for the privilege.

SportsGrid is certainly one to watch in the betting world, particularly if more well-respected industry folk see the value in moving over to the start-up. It has been said before that these tech-savvy start-ups entering the industry from outside the operator and supplier space stand to gain a huge amount from the betting boom, particularly if they can help close the gap and forge connections between bettors, media firms and operators, as SportsGrid says it can.