NHL Sportradar Deal Includes Equity Options When Firm Goes Public
The NHL’s new 10-year gambling data and streaming deal with Sportradar includes the right to purchase up to 1.8% equity in the Swiss firm through three separate avenues.
Should Sportradar’s IPO be successful, the NHL has the right to purchase up to 2,127 common shares, at a price of roughly $4,674 (€3,937.52) per share and the option to purchase another $30 million in shares at market rate in the IPO. Separately, the NHL was granted a warrant to purchase another 2,668 common shares at a price of $12,234 (€10,307.35) per share.
More from Sportico.com
If executed, the total value of equity in those three buckets could be worth around $90 million, based on the NHL’s warrant price, which implies a valuation of $6.5 billion. The value of the NHL’s shares could increase significantly depending on the valuation of the company in its pending IPO.
The new details of the NHL data partnership, which also included cash, were disclosed in Sportradar’s F-1 SEC filing. A representative for the NHL declined to comment on the league’s plans for the options; a representative for Sportradar also declined to comment.
The NHL wouldn’t be the first major U.S. league to be a Sportradar shareholder. The NFL has equity, as part of an earlier partnership that ended this year. The company’s investors also include a trio of NBA owners—Mark Cuban, Ted Leonsis and Michael Jordan—each of whom own less than 5% of the company, according to the filing.
The F-1 draft prospectus lists investment fund Radcliff as owning 27,641 shares in Sportradar, equal to 5.2% equity. Based on the Radcliff disclosures, the NHL’s equity would be 1.5% to 1.8% of the company, depending on the IPO price.
Signed in late July, the NHL partnership made Sportradar the league’s official gatekeeper for data sold to sportsbooks, live streams distributed to operators and data provided to media outlets. Sportradar also committed to helping the league monitor betting patterns to detect any possible suspicious activity.
Official data feeds are one of the most direct ways leagues can profit off the expansion of sports betting in the U.S, and these exclusive partnerships are generally among the biggest non-broadcast partnerships in the market. Sportradar and the NHL will work to make the official feed so complete—in speed and reliability—that sportsbooks and media companies are compelled to pay up for it. (It will include the league’s new puck and player tracking system.)
The NHL and Sportradar have been working together in some capacity since 2015, primarily on data and integrity services. This deal adds the streaming portion, along with marketing aspects.
Sportradar spent most of the last 12 months pursuing both an IPO and a potential SPAC deal. It had a signed letter of intent to be acquired by a SPAC led by Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly, but the two parties were unable to finalize a deal. In August the firm announced it had filed paperwork with the SEC to begin an IPO process. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SRAD.
Best of Sportico.com
