Genius Sports Ltd (GENI) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

and welcome to Genius Sports' second quarter 2026 earnings results. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Genius Sports. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining. Before we begin, we'd like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our historical results or from our forecast. We assume no responsibility for updating forward-looking statements. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in our earnings release and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 20F filed with the SEC on March 17, 2026. During the call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures that we believe may be useful in evaluating Genius's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for Genius's financial results prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measures is available in our earnings press release and earnings presentation, which can be found on our website at investors.geniussports.com. With that, I'll now turn the call to our CEO, Mark Locke.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Before we get into the quarter, I want to step back for a moment. Genius is becoming the operating system of modern sport. We own the official data, the technology and now the audience that regulated sports ecosystems run on. As we bring these capabilities together on one platform, they reinforce each other. And as AI becomes more powerful, the value of our data only increases. Since announcing the Legend acquisition in February, we have told the market consistently that success would be shown, not told. This quarter is the first real look at that combined platform in action, and it delivered. Three takeaways today. First, we delivered on every single line of our guidance. Revenue of $196 million, up 65% year over year and ahead of our guidance. Adjusted EBITDA of $53 million, well ahead of the $45 million we guided. And cash came through our seasonal low point ahead of the range that we set out last quarter. Revenue, adjusted EBITDA and cash all ahead. second this quarter gives you a flavor of the margin profile that this business is built to deliver strong underlying profitability accelerated by the addition of legend and synergies that we are already realizing in the early stages of integration the combination of the businesses is doing exactly what we said that it would third we sit at the center of the two things that this whole market is chasing official data and live high intent audiences in a world that's being reshaped by AI that position is worth more not less and it is already showing up in real deals let me take each in turn and then Brian will take you through the numbers revenue was 196 million dollars up 65 percent betting grew 28 percent and our media business which now includes legend from the 1st of may grew 193 percent as reported our 11 million dollar revenue beat in q2 flowed through to an 8 million dollar ebitda beat aided by the strong natural operating leverage in our business model ramp of genius iq and the initial legend synergies which as we'll discuss in a bit are just getting started we outperformed across both betting and media which now includes legend first the core betting business continues to progress We serve over 500 sportsbook brands across regulated markets. More than half our revenue comes from outside of the United States. And net revenue retention remains consistent with the range we share annually. Year after year, our customers spend more with us because our data and products only get more central to how they operate. our 28 year-on-year growth comes in a quarter of customer-friendly results across sport championship runs star players scoring the kind of outcomes that typically result in lower win margins for sports books our business model is built differently our revenue is not driven by which way the ball bounces we are paid on contractual guarantees and volumes across both sides of the house, and we continue to grow despite that operating backdrop. That is what durable growth looks like. In fact, in a sports betting ecosystem which has shown volatility, our betting segment has delivered over 25% revenue growth in each year since 2023, and is on track to do the same this year. Again, that is what durable growth looks like. In addition to our outperformance in betting, we've also outperformed in media, reflecting continued momentum across our existing media business, driven by new brand and agency customers, increased spend and strong demand from prediction market operators. this performance was further strengthened by the addition of legend the market is shifting in the direction of the business that we have built at can lion a few weeks ago the industry's loudest conversation was live sport one of the last places that a brand can reach a large emotionally engaged audience at scale genius is now a well-known name at can because we own the data layer underneath that attention. This gives us a unique view of sports fans. Our data doesn't just tell us who the sports fans are, it tells us how they behave during key moments. As an example, it tells us that consumers spend 25% more on food delivery when their team loses. ahead of the nba final we knew the knicks fans spent seven times more on live entertainment than spurs fans while spurs fans are three times more likely to be fishing enthusiasts our biometric research with media science has showed that an ad served immediately after a heightened moment in live sport can double unaided brand recall those aren't just interesting data points, they're signals that brands can act upon. Our advantage is the data layer behind the moment engine. We don't just help brands reach sports fans, we help them reach the right fans at the right moment with the right message. That's the difference between buying impressions and delivering outcomes and we're proving this value as more brands buy in. On our last earnings call we told you that we had won roughly 70 new customers since launching the Moment Engine in March. In Q2 alone we've added 174 new customers including major brands like McDonald's, YouTube TV and DoorDash, who are shifting spend to our platform. This is not sponsorship. It is measurable attention sold on our own data. The World Cup showed exactly what that looks like in practice. Take the example on the screen. Argentina's comeback against Egypt was one of the defining moments of the tournament. Using Genius IQ data, we not only tracked what was happening on the pitch, but what millions of fans were likely to be feeling as that match unfolded. That allowed brands to adapt their ad campaigns in real time, aligning spend and creative with the moments that mattered most. And that wasn't a one-off. We executed this throughout the tournament. One global consumer brand used Genius IQ to activate campaigns around goals, penalties, VAR decisions and other pivotal moments. The result was roughly three times greater CPM efficiency than planned and the lowest cost per click of any campaign that they ran during the World Cup. That is the opportunity. Official data is no longer just telling you what happened. It's helping brands to decide what to do next. While the World Cup was a great showcase of what our products can deliver, we expect this to scale across the entire sports calendar. As a result, Genius is in the middle of conversations that we simply were not in 12 months ago. We are serving as a strategic sports partner to agencies, we are integrating with established ad tech businesses and brands are telling us our data is some of the most important infrastructure in their programmatic campaigns and we're only just beginning. This season we expect to bring the Moment Engine capabilities to the NFL-related media activations, extending into one of the most valuable media properties in sport and unlocking another avenue for long-term growth. Underneath both the growth and the margin sits product. Genius IQ turns our official data into faster, more automated, higher value products, and it is a direct driver of the margins that you're seeing and will continue to see. These are still very early days. Our single connected platform is creating value across every point of the sports ecosystem. One platform, endless solutions. Every new capability we build creates another way to monetize the same infrastructure. Broadcasters like DAZN are using it to make live sport more immersive. Brands like Amazon and enterprise are using it as real-time sponsorship opportunities during heightened moments of the match. Analysts at Sky Sport are using it to deliver rich insights and analysis. Leagues like CBF and Liga MX are using it to make fast, accurate and transparent officiating decisions. While these are different use cases, they all point to the same simple objective. Genius IQ is turning official data into products that make sport more valuable for every participant in the ecosystem. This is the operating system of modern sport. Now to legend and the synergy specifically, because this is the part that I want you to hear clearly. Legend is one layer in the genius system, the demand layer, sitting alongside our data and our technology. It brings a durable owned audience, roughly one hundred and eighteen million users, two thirds of whom return and customers acquired through legend carry around 60 percent higher lifetime value for operators after their first year. Those audience characteristics aren't just theoretical. They have been consistent since the start of the year and they are already showing up in our results. Group revenue increased $77 million year over year, yet sales and marketing expenses are only up $3 million. And that's with Legend only contributing since the 1st of May. If we'd acquired a business that depended on continually buying and reselling its traffic, then that sales and marketing expense line would have looked very different. in reality however we do not rent the audience we own it here's what's new when we announced the deal we laid out a set of revenue synergies and said they would build over time they're building faster than expected cross-selling across the combined customer bases underway already delivering results prediction markets are our most visible example of this coming through The first phase of audience data integration is complete, immediately benefiting our fangraph and delivering results for our media customers. And we have begun using Legends properties as media inventory, which benefits margin as we shift spend away from third party platforms and onto our own. On the forward, the significant bulk of the synergy opportunity is still ahead of us. But it is no longer just a line on a slide. It has started and it is ahead of schedule. And on the AI question that we always get, an owned, returning, first party audience becomes more valuable as the open web fills with generic machine made content, not less. As AI decides more of what people discover and buy, the businesses that own real data and a real audience are the ones that win. We own both. That is the position. Prediction markets are one example of how we're leveraging this position. In the second quarter, we generated meaningful revenue from the category. And after the quarter end, we reached another important milestone by signing direct commercial agreements with both Cauchy and Polymarket across official data and customer acquisition. At a high level, three things are happening at once. First, the data layer. Over the past few months, both Cauchy and Polymarket have partnered with leagues like the Argentinian Football Association, Liga MX and Serie A. each built on official data and integrity from Genius. Building on those league partnerships, we've now established direct commercial agreements with both prediction market platforms, covering a wide range of content across our data portfolio. Official rights run league by league. That is the structure of this industry. And on the sports that we hold, settlement runs on our data. leagues will move at their own pace in this category and so will the scale of our platform relationships as an example of this look at what happened last week the NFL filed formally with the CFTC and told the regulator in writing that markets on sport cannot operate with integrity without official settlement data real monitoring and information sharing between the venues and the leagues. The largest league in America has put on record that this category runs on infrastructure and that infrastructure is what we have spent two decades building. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not expect the NFL to green light prediction markets in the near future and have not included this in our 2026 guidance. However, what is clear is that the direction of travel is towards more official data, not less. What we've established with Cauchy and Polymarket is a foundation upon which we will layer more content, more services and more territories over time. It is the same compounding playbook that you have watched us execute in sports betting, now applied to prediction markets. Second, the data layer also extends to market making. The reliance on our official data and models to price markets is essential to provide liquidity on these exchanges. This puts us in a uniquely valuable position. Third, the audience layer, as was part of our thesis when we first announced Legend in February, and this category is where Legend is already excelling and delivering in our Q2 results. We are sourcing new customers for prediction market operators in a very significant volume. Every one of those customers is acquired somewhere. With our organic media platform now turbocharged by legend, we own many of the destinations where those customers are acquired. And competition for those customers is only becoming more intense. That is why acquisition dollars flow to us in Q2 and why our combined media offering became a key part of our deals with Cauchy and Polymarket. Our role in this market is infrastructure. We supply everyone. All three of these elements come together to represent a sum larger than its component parts. That is exactly how we said the legend acquisition helps us and exactly how we said prediction markets would expand our total addressable market. While sports moments will come and go, our prediction market revenue is beginning to structurally rise and we expect significant upside in the years ahead, both in our betting and media segments from this important market segment. Two key questions about our stock, asked frequently since the Legend announcement in February, are now directly addressed in our results. More importantly, they leave us better positioned for the next phase of growth. And with that, let me hand to Brian.

Thanks, Mark. Let me start by simply recapping our three key financial metrics. First, another quarter of solid revenue growth across the board. 65% overall, underpinned by 28% in betting, and 193% in media, reflecting the effect of the acquisition, but also continued organic growth solidly above 20% for both Genius and Legend Media. Taken together, these demonstrate the strength of our combined business. second another quarter of solid adjusted EBITDA growth of 54 percent this represents a 27 percent margin which was over 250 basis points above the margin implied by our guidance let me be direct about that margin because I know the question, is this just acquisition mix? Mix helps just as we said it would, but it's not the whole story. Our organic growth is generating real operating leverage. Genius IQ automation is improving our core economics and integration synergies are already landing ahead of schedule, with most of that opportunity still ahead of us. That's why we're confident raising guidance today. And third, quarter-end cash of $155 million was above the range of $140 to $150 million we set last quarter. To delve into cash flow a bit, Q2 is always our seasonal low point for cash, and in this quarter specifically, the transaction-related factors amplified that effect. First, our normal seasonality remains unchanged, where the second half of the year is naturally more cash-generative. Second, we incurred the one-time costs associated with closing the Legend acquisition. Those costs are now largely behind us and will not repeat. To put this quarter in context, we finished Q1 with $197 million in cash and finished Q2 with $155 million. The change was predominantly driven by $41 million of debt financing costs. Excluding certain one-time transaction-related impacts, underlying operating cash flow would have been roughly break-even. One additional accounting point that's worth calling out. The cash flow statement shows a $579 million use of cash for the acquisition of the business. That reflects the accounting presentation excluding the repayment of shareholder loans, settlement of Legend's historic incentive plans, and the cash acquired in the transaction. Taken together, those contribute to the $800 million upfront cash consideration paid. As we mentioned last quarter, from here we expect cash generation to accelerate through the second half of the year. We expect to generate approximately $145 million of unlevered free cash flow in the second half. That represents 70% unlevered free cash flow conversion of the approximately $210 million of adjusted EBITDA. Less roughly $30 million of interest and $10 million of debt repayment gets you to 50% levered cash flow conversion. So, from the third quarter onward, you'll have a much cleaner view of the underlying cash-generating power of the business as we progress toward our 2028 targets for 60% unlevered free cash flow conversion. Importantly, we're now seeing capitalized software costs flatten, just as we've said it would. As revenue continues to grow, this will continue to decline as a percentage of revenue, providing another structural tailwind to cash conversion over time. On the balance sheet, our only debt is the $825 million term loan used to fund the Legend acquisition. We have no revolver drawn and no other borrowings. As cash generation accelerates in the second half, we expect to exit the year at approximately two times net leverage and continue reducing that in 2027, while maintaining ample liquidity throughout. out. Let me quickly comment on our gap net loss of approximately $77 million and remind you that this reflects the accounting for the close of the Legend acquisition. The result includes one-time transaction costs, acquisition financing, and the non-cash accounting associated with acquired intangible assets, not the underlying operating performance of the business. Looking ahead, we expect our earnings profile to continue improving as we progress toward sustained gap profitability. Taken together, the financial profile of the business is becoming increasingly clear. Durable revenue growth, improving profitability, increasing cash generation, and lower leverage. Now let me finish with guidance. We are raising our full-year outlook. Revenue moves to a range of $1.005 to $1.025 billion. And adjusted EBITDA moves to a range of $285 to $295 million, a margin of roughly 29%. The operating leverage is showing up in the numbers, driven by strong revenue growth, nascent rise in prediction markets revenues, ramping Genius IQ automation, and early synergy capture, all of it structural. That gives us tremendous optimism for genius's path forward. 2027 is when the combined earnings power really starts to show, and it puts us squarely on track to achieve our 2028 guidance, which is more visible today than the day we set it. And with that, back to you, Mark.

Thanks, Brian. There's a lot in today's earnings, so let me summarize. We beat our guidance on every metric. Our largest ever acquisition is already delivering synergies ahead of schedule. We own the official data that the regulated ecosystem, sportsbooks, media and now prediction markets depend on. And we own the audience layer on top of it. We believe we are only just beginning to monetize the full potential of our platform within prediction markets. Thank you. And we will now open it up for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are unmuted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, Eric. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much for taking the question. Maybe I'll kick us off with a big picture one. Obviously, with the close of the Legend acquisition, talk to us a little bit about what some of the key learnings have been as you went through the pre-close and now the integration process with the asset. And how are you thinking about potential for elements on both the monetization side and the synergy side to continue to evolve and what some of those key learnings have been? Thanks.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Eric. And Mark here. Look, Legend started really, really well. We're super positive about it. And I think, you know, the synergies are coming through faster than we expected. You can see that. And we announced the last couple of days, Kaoshi deal, Polymarket deal. and it's really proving the thesis that we had when we went out and bought Legend that there would be immediate and significant synergies so they're coming through immediately from a operational point of view the teams are merging really well we've had some off-sites the products are coming out the door in a really satisfactory way and we're starting to get some technical cross-sellers, sorry, technical crossover as well with our product sets. So overall, it's been remarkably successful and we're super excited about it.

Great, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Barry Jonas with Truist Securities. Your line is open, Barry. Please go ahead.

Great, thank you. Guys, decelerating OSB handle growth has been a factor for a competitor and a customer this week, and I think PM proliferation potentially could be a factor. Just curious, are there similar risks to your business once we get to NFL season?

Thanks, Barry. Look, the way we think about the market is that we're taking revenue from anything to do with sports betting. So whether that's from the traditional OSB operators or whether that's the expansion in the TAM that we're getting with the prediction market. It's all very net positive for us. The other thing that's worth focusing on, and we've said it before many times, is that we've got a business model that has that underlying flaw. So the way that we do deals gives us the sort of minimum downsides that protects us from the volatility. You've seen it a number of times in our business when there's been sort of negative sports results for the OSBs that we've actually been protected. And again, we carry that philosophy forward in all the deals that we do.

Barry, the only other thing I would add to that is just a reminder on the global nature of our business. And the America is being roughly 50 percent. And so there's diversity there that we're not necessarily hinged to one geography or one sport.

Got it. And if I could just ask a follow up on the guide, you know, 15 million increase to both revenue and EBITDA. which would be about 100% flow through. I see that Q2 revenue beat by 11 and EBITDA by 8, but just curious how we get to 100% flow through for the full year.

Oops, sorry.

Yeah, again, just the continued momentum, the momentum year to date, you see it in the numbers in the quarter, exceeding margin there, and then just continued build for the rest of the year. That's the execution of the underlying business, the legend integration, tracking well, and just new deals and partnerships as exemplified by the recent ones in the last couple of days with Kimoshy and Polygarth. So multitude of factors there factoring into the guide.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Pizella with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open, Steve. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the questions. I think you mentioned that 2027 is when the combined earnings power really starts to show and to prepare remarks. Can you talk about some of the biggest drivers of acceleration next year?

Yeah. Again, you've seen it before, just this compounding playbook we have across the business, both betting and media. We are tapping into a rising market. Growth of prediction markets is nascent. The continued opportunities is we bring on new operators, sportsbooks. Legend also gives us exposure to iGaming. So there's a number of factors there as we continue to just grow our portfolio of products and get more penetration and uptake with our partners to help them grow as well.

Okay, thank you.

And then in the prediction market revenue drivers in the presentation you mentioned the liquidity how are you seeing demand for your pricing models in addition to the official data yeah that's right uh yeah so i'm just to remind everybody with the prediction markets we make money in lots of different ways um we've said it for you know for a while but um obviously on the marketing side especially with the additional legend you know we're helping the prediction markets acquire new customers bring them in um we've said for a long time that we sell to market makers and um the market makers take both the data and the pricing services and finally now we're um you know cutting deals as you've seen with couching polymarket with directly with uh the prediction markets and there's some you know some significant upsides seeing the number of those prediction markets out out there so um the demand for our products and services is growing um you know it's it's something that we think there's some, you know, significant upside in over the period. But we've been very cautious of the way that we've forecast. For example, the NFL is not and never has been included in any of our numbers. So, you know, the opportunities across the prediction market space are significant for us.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Hickey with Stonex. Your line is open, Mike. Please go ahead.

Hey, Mark, Brian, Brandon. Congrats, guys, on a great quarter and seeing that Legend deal come through. So kudos to you guys. Just maybe as a quick follow-up to the last question, you're obviously delivering the data and pricing to market makers. Can you just maybe talk about real quick why that's so valuable for them? And then, Mark, do you see an opportunity in the future that maybe Genius could eventually participate more directly in market making on PM platforms?

Yeah, good questions, Mike. Look, we've traded on the regulated exchanges for the last 20 years or so, and we really don't see any difference in the U.S. with prediction markets. And the emergence of the prediction markets is just more opportunity for us to keep leveraging our pricing, our risk capabilities and really sort of drive revenue. It's no additional cost for us. So we're seeing, you know, we're seeing good results from our engagement with that, the market makers. And, you know, we feel very optimistic about the future.

Nice. One last one on prediction market deal economics. Awesome to see the framework here in partnership with Cauchy and Polymarket. To the best you can, can you give us some color maybe on how these agreements, the economics of these agreements compare with your traditional sports books deals?

And I guess specifically on the data pricing and services that those structures are broadly similar or PM platforms are maybe paying less for data while you can sort of make up the economics through bundled services like integrity, liquidity and customer acquisition. yeah i mean uh so i think i said last quarter you know the bit the we see those um players as um being like large large tier operators for us going forwards and i think the deals that we've seen coming through are more than satisfying that requirement um the the deal structures again are very similar we have fixed minimums um you know there's upside as well as part of it and clearly um you know especially seeing the um i guess that the the this where they are in their stage of evolution around product and customer acquisition we actually see significant opportunities there um uh in terms of providing product providing data providing uh services um you know as they evolve their business um in in quite a rapid way your next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly with Oppenheimer.

Your line is open, Jed. Please go ahead.

Hey, great. Thanks for taking my question. Just getting back to the increase in the guidance and specifically in the media segment, is that coming strictly from some of the higher prediction market advertising you're expecting to see, or are you seeing other brands outside of sports coming as well and that's also benefiting considering all the agency partnerships yeah it's a good question it's sort of everything so you know if you take the world cup for example the world world cup was was great for us we managed to add a you know significant number of new brands to it which is a you know great way to kick start um relationships with new players

there so we see a significant upside there you've seen um obviously the cross sell from the legend the synergies coming through there in terms of the marketing so that that's coming through it's it's a sort of combination of all of those things you know what what's going on in the in the um you know advertising world and the focus that you know i mentioned it in my my remarks that that um the world now has on um sports as a as a sort of sector and we saw that at can lion all of that's really contributing to some of the um significant growth and demand that we're seeing for the product sets great and that just as a follow-up when you look at you know the prediction markets trading and where volume is and it's heavily weighted in game and it's popular with certain sports such as tennis you know college basketball um how does that make you think sort of your rights portfolio and is there some opportunities you kind of look at given the user behavior in that market thank you yeah so um obviously our our business um has is has grown up on live on live betting live data so um you know it's having the best data having the best collection technology is becoming increasingly important one of the things that we're getting with genius iq that we're rolling out and we're doing this across global basketball you know with fever we're doing it with global soccer again where there's a lot of live betting um is is really um at the ability to upscale and to take new um higher quality faster data feeds which are highly relevant to the prediction markets so that's a big opportunity and again we we're pretty unique in our technology that allows us to to do that um and certainly you know that technology as a you know as a slight aside you know we're rolling rolling out additional faster collection technology with the nfl at the moment. So there's better ways of collecting data using the technology that we've invested in and the money that we spent over the last few years, which are highly relevant to prediction markets. Separately to that, obviously pricing the volume of events that are happening now and creating those models that we mentioned before is something that we have a huge amount of history and we've got all of the data, we've got those pricing models, we've been doing it for a long time. So we see it as a big growth opportunity to actually have our models and our data out there being used to create those new market opportunities.

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Nichols with B. Riley. Your line is open, Josh. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Great to see a solid first quarter with the legend acquisition under your belt now. You've talked a lot about the synergies. I realize it's still early days and a little bit hard to quantify any kind of framework that you could maybe put around some of the opportunities that you're seeing thus far maybe at least uh maybe name and size one or two things that you've been able to get done this far and opportunities as we head into the seasonally stronger second half yeah i mean again if you just look at the cowshi deal and the polymarket deal that we've just agreed they're really two um you know significant proof points that have come through and there's plenty more to come.

You've got, you know, you've got real evidence of faster synergy delivery in the business and in the numbers now. And so we're extremely pleased to see how that's operating.

Thanks. And then last question for me, a big step up in the momentum engine advertisers this quarter. You know, it's ramping up quite quickly. You're probably going to get more traction, you know, headed into the NFL season coming up. But how should people think about the opportunities there, whether it's like contract size, renewal expectations and how that business is going to grow and how that advertising base has been expanding thus far?

Yeah, so I guess there's two parts to it. I mean, you've got the advertisers and the brands and the World Cup has been a fantastic test case for that. we've um you know brought on i think 174 new new clients um which we tested over the world cup and clearly those clients have um had you know a lot of success in a lot of ways and that's a great base to build from so that's one sort of vector that we've that we've got the other vector is clearly around the prediction markets you know with the with the upcoming nfl season with frankly just with the number of prediction market operators coming into the space and and also with the osb some of the major ones you know talking about their prediction market aspirations there's an enormous requirement for new customers customer acquisition customer um engagement and and again part of the logic behind the legend acquisition and and what we're now seeing through legend with the um with the product sets that we're putting out there is is very focused on that so we see that sort of as the other vector in that space so with you know we're pretty confident about how that market's going to evolve. And again, we've now got real sort of empirical evidence, which allows us to have real confidence in our future growth forecasts.

Your next question comes from the line of Bernie McTernan with Needham & Company. Your line is open, Bernie. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just to start, Mark, understand the commentary that you're not expecting the guidance doesn't include um the nfl to sign a deal with prediction market operators but is there any way to frame what that would mean um for your deals or the potential monetization of those contracts if a deal were to come through between um the nfl and either calci and or poly market uh yeah i mean look as as i've said and i want to be very clear you know we we don't expect that and as you said it's not in our numbers um clearly it would be very significant you know there's a there's a there's a number of there's a number of factors there's a financial

significance that comes directly with the you know sale of the data you know for for the most important league um and there's obviously the value of the affiliation that they get which has which has a real monetary value as well so um you know we've got a very close eye on it um but again you know we we we we've been conservative in the way that we've forecast we've never included it and you know I if I were you I wouldn't be expecting that to come through this season understood and then I was just hoping maybe to dive in a little bit deeper on the the moments engine I think it really launched in March of this year so this is the first NFL season I think there's a lot of success with the World Cup so can you just talk about maybe cross-selling or

having those advertisers you know especially the 174 that just came on board staying on board and and having them, um, advertised during the NFL season as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Look, it's, it's, it's, it's a big industry trend that's coming through. You know, we, we launched, as you, as you rightly said, in March, um, we then had can, which, um, has been, um, you know, frankly, very successful. And, um, the advertisers that are trialing that have trialed it over the world cup, we fully expect to take into, um, the beginning of the NFL season. And we've got some pretty big names that we're now working with, some pretty big agencies. The technology's deployed. You've got to remember it's in over 90 percent of the platforms that the agencies are using. So overall, we're extremely well positioned. And the best thing about where we are at the moment is that we've actually got that empirical evidence. We've got that data that tells us what the results are so we can be very confident in our forecasting going forwards and our ability to cross sell to the client base.

Your next question comes from the line of Trey Bowers with Wells Fargo. Your line is open, Trey. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Just a couple of modeling questions. First, on the Legend side of things, you guys talked about the 20% organic growth at both Legend and internally. Would that say that you guys did about $45 million of Legend in the second quarter?

Trey, we operate the businesses as one. We don't break out legends separate from genius. Again, as I said earlier, the underlying business across betting and all the media has been strong and solid. And that execution continues to be ahead of where we thought for the quarter and on the full year guide as well. So we're excited about that.

Okay, perfect. And then just on the cash flow side of things, helpful to get the expected cash balance by year end, but can you guys just maybe break down a little more detail around that, just expectations for operating cash flow, capitalized software, and PP&E spend, and against that, just any kind of feel for Q3 versus Q4? Will Q3 be a positive quarter? I assume Q4 is going to be quite a bit bigger because of seasonality, but just any breakdown around all that would be great. Thanks so much.

Yeah, thanks. There was a lot of movements in cash for the quarter, and not everything, or I should say it's spread in various lines on the cash flow statement, just given the accounting. But for the rest of the year, as we've said, we're going to be at about 70% unlevered free cash flow on the back half, and then it nets down to about 50% after the interest and debt repayment. You're right that it will scale. Q4 will be ahead of Q3, but you will see that progression towards the year-end balance of over $100 million in improvement.

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Bender with Citizens. Your line is open, Jordan. Please go ahead.

Everyone, good morning. I want to start maybe back to like the day one thesis for the company. I mean, that's the shift towards in-play betting. Can you just kind of talk about if you could maybe rank some of the initiatives that you're working on into the NFL season that we should be watching out for as we watch your in-play mix?

Yeah, I mean, the first one that I would be focused on is the improvement of the betting data and the betting quality of the work we're doing in the NFL to improve that. That then has a knock on flow, not only into the sports books, then being able to leave the markets open for longer and offer better service to their customers. But also, you know, especially now with the prediction market evolution, that people are going to be pretty focused on on data speed and data quality. So I think that world is that world is evolving pretty quickly as you go into the NFL season.

And then, Mark, following up, I think you said you generated meaningful prediction market revenue in the second quarter. And going back to your investor day back last year, you added some level of contribution to your long-term guidance from prediction markets. But now that we're starting to see those actually come to fruition with Calci and Polymarket, is there a way to kind of think about what prediction market revenue could represent as a percentage of total revenue over time? And I know you're probably not going to give a firm number, but just directionally how we should be thinking about that.

Yeah, look, I think the best way to think about it is thinking about the addition of the major prediction market guys like additional tier one operators. That's really, really, really how we think about it. When we did our investor day in late, I think late November, early December last year. um it you know we we we pointed to the marketing uh revenues from prediction markets and we pointed to market making that's come through you know almost exactly as we thought it would um the addition of the data through the cows to the poly market deal um that's um you know that that's come through around about the same time so i think you know our numbers going forward you know we're we're feeling very good about um and um it includes you know what we think is a prudent amount of money for prediction markets.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Stanchel with Stifle. Your line is open, Jeff. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. Maybe starting off on the betting business, Mark, could you just update us on some of the upcoming renewals for customer contracts in particular? What's in the pipeline in the U.S. ahead of NFL season and maybe how you're thinking about that in the context of guidance?

Yeah, sure. Look, we're constantly renewing contracts. And as you know, the way that we operate the business is we don't have everything coming through for renewal at the same time. We stagger that. So we're always under renewal conversations. As the NFL season draws in, there'll be some renewals that need to get completed by then. But we've seen this movie a thousand times. We will get the deals done. Everybody needs the data. Everyone needs the relationships with the NFL. So the deals will get agreed. And we expect to carry on as usual.

That's great. Thanks. For our follow-up, maybe just a super quick housekeeping item. Brian, I just want to be clear because I think there was a decent bit of confusion here on the last call. The $100 million plus cash flow guidance for the back half, the definition there is change in net cash position on the balance sheet, correct? And then your unlevered free cash flow, you talk about 70% conversion. You can just clarify that definition as well, as I'm not seeing in the release. And then I'll add a third part to that if I can, which is it seems to imply bridging your unlevered free cash flow to that $100 million. You listed two items out. That team suggests there's no real, at least no material, one-time drags in that conversion. So I just want to be clear on that because obviously there's been some litigation costs and stuff of that nature over the last few quarters. Thanks.

That's right. So, the unlevered is essentially operating cash flow minus the CapEx and the CapSoftware in the business. We said we expect CapSoftware to flatten at that high team's low $20 million mark a quarter, including the acquisition of Legend. The difference between the unlevered and the levered is, as I said, that roughly $40 million combined between interest payment and debt repayment. And so that's the difference. Whatever we're saying, levered is after those two things, and the unlevered is your traditional operating minus cap cuts.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl with Craig Hallam. Your line is open, Ryan. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks, guys. So Q4 margin, normally, I know you guided to Q3, you guided for the year. So if I back into Q4, It normally seasonally steps down due to the timing of rights costs, which makes sense. Your guidance implies something like 200 basis points improvement versus Q3 exiting the year at 35%. That is your 2028 target despite that seasonal drag from rights costs. I guess talk through that exit rate at 35%. Is there anything one time in there? And then if your structural operating leverage assumptions are materializing better, which indicated, but why not assume that for a good run rate in 2027?

Again, our margin usually increases through the year as that back half is more revenue and cash generative. We also have the effect of the acquisition, so the exit rate does end higher.

And so that improvement you see in the guide and puts us solidly on the path and optimistic about our 28 guide uh and then if i look at slide five the genius moment engine 174 new advertisers in q2 how many of those were legacy legend customers or i guess asked differently how many of those 174 are new incremental to to uh both the combined genius genius and legend uh yeah i mean they're almost all new and incremental.

I mean, I can throw it. I mean, if you, you know, I think on one of the slides, we put some of the names, but we've got McDonald's, YouTube TV, DoorDash, Qualcomm, Airbnb, SeekGeek, Wayfair, Whoop, Kroger. You know, there's a lot of new brands and, you know, that are coming to the business and trying the services and getting good results from it. We're super excited about it.

Your next question comes from the line of Chad Bannon with Macquarie. Your line is open, Chad. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Two quick ones from us this morning. Just on the World Cup or the second quarter, are you able to parse out what you think the benefit was, maybe versus your expectations from the World Cup overall in the two different business segments?

And then secondly, related to that i saw in the in the um release you mentioned semi semi-automated offside technology deal where are we in terms of just doing more deals with with leagues kind of on the back of everything that we learned from from the world cup and kind of where your technology is versus some of your peers thanks yeah so um just on the world cup remember we um you know we didn't we didn't buy the data right so the world cup effect is really around the marketing and the advertising and it was pretty much almost exactly in line with our expectation um so i i you know i think that answers that um on the data side we you know we're doing we're doing quite a lot of deals i mean we just launched i think you probably saw with uh with brazil um this semi-automated offside i mean that's a pretty significant deal we've got the liga mx we've got some stuff in college that's coming out you know we're rolling the technology out pretty quickly um and we're getting very good traction in terms of the technology itself um you know we still have a massive head start on um anything else out in the market if you look at you know one of the metrics for example might be um the mesh tracking that we have so um you know that there are you know the the business that we have with the genius iq product is to have skeletal tracking i think um we're at 10 000 points on a human body 200 times a second versus the number you know i think the the second player in the market that's at 26 points on a human body. So, you know, the fidelity of the data, the quality of the product, the speed at which we're capturing it, and then we're using that technology to do things like the automated event capture, faster data that you're using in the prediction markets. The whole strategy is coming together brilliantly. We're extremely pleased about it.

We're rolling new products off the back of it, and it's becoming, you know, a real incremental driver of our growth thanks mark appreciate it your next question comes from the line of eric handler with roth capital your line is open eric please go ahead yes good morning thanks for the question two questions um first other than the nfl or most of your league partners um have deals with prediction market companies what's left or any of them consequential sorry i didn't get the last bit of that can you say that again if there are any leagues that are not uh that do not have deals with particular market companies

are are any of those consequential of size yeah i think i think in the u.s the notable ones are obviously as you said the nfl um you know college and ncaa is is um is the other one um you know globally i think there's an evolution and a move towards it you know partners like syria you know, Liga MX, they've all moved into the prediction market world. So we expect that trend to continue and there to be additional opportunity. Again, just to sort of make the point, you know, we see this as a real, you know, growth opportunity for us. We, you know, we believe there's plenty of upside here for us still to come, which we haven't baked into our numbers, but, you know, we're excited about where that's going to take us. okay and then how has um customer acquisition spend changed with prediction market companies now coming into the picture do you see is there a big battle between sports books and predictive market companies over over customers yeah i mean the short answer is yes there is a there is a a battle and um you know clearly that's uh that that's causing the um the premium space to be elevated in price and obviously through legend we now own the you know the hands down the best customer acquisition platform out there for any of the prediction markets or sportsbook operators and um you know the the we're reaping rewards on that really you know in quite an immediate and aggressive way so um we're seeing we're seeing you know strong growth in the space as a result of it we have reached the end of the q and a session i will now turn the call to mark lock co-founder and CEO for closing remarks. Yeah, just a quick one from me. And I just want to say thanks very much for all of you joining today. And we're looking forward to talking to you again in Q3. I just wanted a quick note on the timing of that call. It might become a little later in the month as I'm expecting another baby around that time. So I just wanted to give you a bit of a heads up so there were no surprises.

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