Sportradar Group AG Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and welcome to Sportradar Group's Third Quarter Earnings Call. I will now hand the conference over to Jim Bombassei, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. Jim, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Sportradar's earnings call for the third quarter of 2025. Please note that the slides we will reference during this presentation can be accessed via the webcast on our website at investors.sportradar.com and will be posted on our website at the conclusion of this call. A replay of today's call will also be available on our website. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions from analysts and investors. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please note that some of the information you will hear during our discussion today will consist of forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding revenue and future business outlook. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or trends to differ materially from our forecast. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our annual report on Form 20-F and Form 6-K filed today with the SEC, along with the associated earnings release. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates. Also, during today's call, we will present IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures and operating metrics. Additional disclosures regarding these measures and metrics, including a reconciliation of IFRS to non-IFRS measures are included in the earnings release, supplemental slides and our filings with the SEC, each of which is posted to our Investor Relations website. We may also discuss certain forward-looking non-IFRS financial measures that cannot be reconciled to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure without unreasonable efforts. Joining me for today's call are Carsten Koerl, our CEO; and Craig Felenstein, our CFO. And now I'll turn the call over to Carsten.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to announce another quarter of strong execution and performance. Our results further underscore our scale and position as a mission-critical partner deeply embedded in the global sports ecosystem. We achieved record quarter 3 revenues of EUR 292 million and strong flow-through with 29% growth in adjusted EBITDA and a record adjusted EBITDA margin of 29%. So far this year, we have generated EUR 149 million of free cash flow, representing very strong conversion of 72%. In addition, we are raising our full year '25 guidance with the closing of our IMG Arena acquisition and providing our initial thoughts for '26, underscoring our accelerating growth and value creation. Given the strong momentum we see going forward and the opportunity to create significant shareholder value, our Board of Directors authorized increasing our share repurchase program by EUR 100 million, raising the total program to a size of EUR 300 million. As we discussed at our Investor Day, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the rapid expansion of the global sports betting market, given our scale and the depth and breadth of our content, we are driving higher take rates by growing our products and content, penetrating across our loyal client base as we continue to accelerate innovation and bring next-generation products to the market. IMG Arena fits squarely into this growth strategy. First, we would like to welcome our new colleagues and partners from around the world. IMG Arena is a highly strategic acquisition, which aligns with our core business and will fuel our next leg of growth. It further strengthens the competitive position as the scaled leader at the intersection of sports, media and betting, bringing a wealth of premium content and complements and enhances our already robust global portfolio and capabilities. As a reminder, this transaction is unique in that we are not making any payments to Endeavor, but instead are benefiting from financial consideration totaling approximately EUR 225 million. This acquisition is expected to accelerate our growth while being accretive to our adjusted EBITDA margins and free cash flow from conversion, which Craig will provide more details on shortly. This deal makes major milestones and creates significant additional opportunities for our company, enhancing our content distribution and further fueling product development. We will seamlessly integrate and monetize these rights across our highly scalable technology platform and client network, encompassing strategic relationships with over 70 rights holders; approximately 70% of these rights are spread across the 3 most betting sports: soccer, tennis, and basketball. This acquisition helps fuel our flywheel, adding more must-have content and data, which in turn powers more generation, grows NPS trading liquidity and scales our video streams. Our teams have been hard at work and now that we have closed on the deal, they have hit the ground running to manage a smooth integration and maximize revenue synergies in both the short and the long-term. While some synergies will be realized quickly, others might take more time to fully realize. When it comes to global sports coverage, we are the clear leader, and this is further enhanced with IMG. With a portfolio of over 1 million matches annually, our major partnerships are locked in long-term, providing us with great visibility on our right costs. We just completed the first season of our extended and expanded partnership with Major League Baseball, and we saw strong performance for the season with revenues exceeding original projections. We recently renewed and extended our deal with the Spanish Football Federation to sell the international media rights for the Spanish Super Cup until 2032. This agreement ensures we keep control of global broadcast sales for the tournament well into the next decade and gives us continuing as the Spanish Football Federation exclusive international media rights partner. As we fine-tune our leading rights portfolio, we continue to drive innovation across our business, creating more cross-selling and upselling opportunities with our clients and partners. In terms of product development, we are leading to shift towards more personalized and interactive experiences. We are delivering next-generation products that shape how fans view, bet, and connect with the player on the field. A great example of how we are doing this is through our deepening partnership with the NBA. 4Sight Streaming, first introduced last season, has been upgraded with new features, including live shot probability, enhanced motion graphics, and real-time player highlights. These updates deliver deeper storytelling and more contextual data-rich visualizations that boost engagement. One of our most exciting recent AI breakthroughs is the development of a generative foundation model for basketball, a first of its kind in sport. The model is based on a large transformer architecture, which we trained using billions of 3D body position data points from thousands of NBA matches, allowing the model to understand player movement, decision-making, and game flow at an unprecedented level of detail. This foundation model now powers predictive insights in real time, such as the expected points in the current possession, probability of the ball handler scoring in the next few seconds, or how each player's actions affect the team's points per possession. These insights enhance our 4Sight Streaming product, bringing richer, more interactive visualizations to live broadcasters. In addition, this technology opened new frontiers in coaching and performance analytics, quantifying the value of every pass, block, and shot. We see this foundation model powering our next generation of products, including coaching and scouting analytics, realistic simulating betting products, advanced visualizations for media and broadcast, and more advanced AI engines for sport video games. Now turning to our managed trading services. This product continues to be a differentiator for us and a key value proposition for our clients. Turnover for the quarter was up 25% year-over-year. And on a trailing 12-month basis, we managed approximately EUR 48 billion on behalf of our clients, making us a top bookmaker globally. Our proven AI-driven trading and risk management capabilities, combined with the diversity of sports on our MTS platform enabled us to achieve a margin of over 11% for our clients during the quarter. Given the scale of our trading volume and the number of betting tickets we are managing, this gives us a clear competitive advantage, enabling us to better manage risk than the major operators. In 2026, this client group will be a clear focus for upselling and cross-selling our MTS capabilities. We also continue to make significant progress in our marketing services business. In particular, our ads business delivered record volumes on our DSP this quarter, reflecting growth demanding for our data-driven advertising solutions. We saw robust performance across multiple channels, including our affiliate business, underscoring the strong ROI of our campaigns and the scalability of our marketing platform. As discussed last quarter, we are seeing a clear trend in today's fragmented media environment with clients increasingly turning to Sportradar to enhance fan engagement across mobile streaming and connected TV platforms. Betting is no longer viewed as a stand-alone experience, but instead as an integral part of how fans engage with sport. As fan behavior becomes more interactive and sports viewership continues to transition from linear to digital and mobile streaming, our media and technology clients are looking to leverage our capabilities to drive deeper engagement and greater value across multiple channels. We have recently signed deals with a number of media platforms, including leading U.S. regional sports networks and several top national broadcasters to integrate our data APIs, streaming products, and advanced analytics, delivering deeper storytelling and more contextual data-rich visualizations that boost engagement. As an example of this in our new partnership with DAZN, the global sports entertainment platform offering live and on-demand coverage across a wide range of sports and leagues. This deal marks another milestone in scaling our media business globally as we now provide DAZN the data and broadcast services across soccer, basketball, tennis, golf, American football, and baseball. Our technology will power on-screen graphics, deliver real-time stats, and elevate storytelling across DAZN's platforms. We also have extended and expanded our partnerships with Google and Yahoo!, providing live game day sports analytics for Google and expanding our relationships as a primary provider for sports data for both Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Fantasy. And we are excited about the customized version of our 4Sight technology we developed together with NBC for Peacock called Performance View. Debuted last night for Peacock's streamed NBA games, Performance View gives fans a new way to experience the action. Performance View adds an on-screen layer of data that illustrates deep analytics such as where a player is likely to score from next, helping fans understand what might happen before it occurs on the call. Now switching to a topic that has been on investor minds recently, I will touch on prediction markets. We saw prediction markets emerge in sports betting nearly 25 years ago, but their share has been limited historically, given the low liquidity and the challenge pricing more complex bets, including in-game wagers. The emerging market situation in the U.S. is a bit different, given the current uncertainty regarding state versus federal regulation. We have seen recent moves made by certain of our league partners and clients, and we are in active discussions with them. We will work closely with our partners and clients while ensuring that we comply with applicable laws and regulatory requirements. Should the market continue to develop in a manner that aligns with those standards, we see the potential for prediction markets to complement our existing business and create incremental opportunity for Sportradar. In closing, we are excited about the continued momentum we are seeing in our business and the significant strides we are making leveraging our technology and capabilities to lead the industry. Our global scale, which will be further enhanced with IMG Arena, provides us with an opportunity to continue to innovate and drive value creation. We are confident in our growth strategy and the significant opportunities that lie ahead, and we remain laser-focused on driving long-term value for our clients, partners, and shareholders. Thank you. And I will now turn over to Craig, who will discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Thanks, Carsten, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. Sportradar's strong third quarter results once again demonstrate the value of the unique position we have built at the intersection of the sports, media, and betting industries. The relationships we have developed and nurtured with clients and partners over more than 2 decades are driving durable and consistent revenue growth. And when combined with our stable and predictable cost base, we are generating record adjusted EBITDA margins and significant free cash flow. Sportradar is leveraging our best-in-class product suite across our leading global distribution network to deliver increasing value to our league, media, and sportsbook partners. And as Carsten mentioned, the closing of the IMG Arena acquisition further strengthens our competitive position as the mission-critical partner to the sports industry. I will provide more color on the expected contribution from IMG later in my remarks as it accelerates our growth while being accretive to our margin and cash flow profile. Turning to the quarter. Sportradar delivered revenues of EUR 292 million, an increase of EUR 37 million or 14% as compared with the third quarter a year ago. This growth was driven by higher uptake from our existing partners, continued strong U.S. market growth, and strong trading results from our managed trading services business. We continue to outperform market growth by deepening our client relationships through cross-selling and upselling our diverse portfolio of offerings, as demonstrated by our customer net retention rate of 114%. As we have discussed previously, foreign currency movements, most notably due to the U.S. dollar relative to the EUR, continue to be a headwind, and revenue growth in the third quarter would have been 17% on a constant currency basis. Looking at the individual product groupings, we delivered broad-based growth across both our betting technology and solutions products as well as our sports content, technology, and services. Betting technology and solutions revenue of EUR 233 million grew 11% versus the third quarter a year ago, primarily driven by 19% growth in managed betting services, led by the sustained momentum at managed trading services from increased turnover with higher volumes from our existing customer base and trading activity from new clients, as well as increased overall trading margins. Betting and gaming content delivered 8% growth during the quarter, despite foreign currency headwinds, including sustained momentum in our streaming and betting engagement products due to growth in audiovisual revenues from both existing and new customers. Odds and live data products also continued to perform well, led by additional client uptake and continued U.S. market expansion. Turning to our other product group, sports content, technology, and services delivered strong results this past quarter, with revenues of EUR 59 million, increasing 31% year-on-year. Growth was led by marketing and media services, which were up 33%, primarily from increased uptake from existing and new technology and media customers and from contributions related to our expanded affiliate marketing capabilities. Contributions from integrity services more than doubled due to the uptake of products and services from our lead partners, and we delivered 10% growth versus a year ago from sports performance, due primarily to price increases. Geographically, our growth continues to be broad-based, with U.S. revenue up 21% and Rest of World revenue up 13% in the third quarter. U.S. revenues were 23% of our revenue mix as we continue to capitalize on the continued rapid market growth and the growing demand for our breadth of content and innovative product solutions. Aside from the impact of foreign currency on U.S. revenue, please note that our U.S. revenue mix is typically lowest in the third quarter due to the NBA and NHL off seasons. The strong revenue growth across our product portfolio translated into significant adjusted EBITDA growth in the third quarter with adjusted EBITDA of EUR 85 million, increasing 29% year-on-year. Our continued focus on cost efficiencies, combined with our predictable and stable sports rights costs enabled us to deliver significant operating leverage, with our adjusted EBITDA margin expanding over 300 basis points year-on-year to a record 29% as we continue to be diligent across our cost infrastructure. Looking at the individual cost buckets this past quarter; I will be speaking to adjusted expenses to provide a breakdown of the expenses that impact adjusted EBITDA. We have detailed in the earnings release and the financial section of the earnings presentation, the bridge from IFRS amounts. This past quarter, sports rights expense increased 15% year-on-year to EUR 73 million, due primarily to the continued success of our ATP content as well as our renewed Major League Baseball partnership. We will remain disciplined and strategic with regards to any additional rights we acquire. And with all of our major rights deals locked in the long-term, including the majority of the premium rights we have acquired from IMG, we have significant visibility on sports rights costs moving forward. This visibility gives us confidence in our ability to drive operating leverage across our sports portfolio as we capitalize on the value of our high-demand sports portfolio and the premium products we have developed for our global customer base. Turning to people. Adjusted personnel expenses were EUR 72 million in the quarter, up only 4% year-on-year, driven primarily by increased headcount to support growth opportunities. Importantly, our adjusted personnel expenses continued to decline as a percentage of revenue, down 260 basis points versus Q3 last year as we closely manage headcount to ensure we are focusing our talent and resources on the most profitable growth opportunities while unlocking additional operating leverage. Adjusted purchase services were EUR 42 million in the quarter, up 14% year-on-year, primarily driven by increased cloud costs to support growth initiatives as well as higher traffic and affiliate costs related to the expansion of our marketing services business. Adjusted other operating expenses of EUR 22 million in the quarter were up 4% year-on-year, declining as a percentage of revenue. While we have achieved considerable operating leverage already this year, we continue to see meaningful opportunities to deliver sustained margin expansion over the long term given the inherent scale we have in our business and our long-term cost visibility. As we drive further revenue opportunities and integrate IMG Arena, we will continue to closely manage our cost structure and realize the benefits of sports rights being amortized on a straight line basis over the life of these contracts, delivering more of every dollar of revenue to our bottom line. Looking at the full P&L, we generated a profit of EUR 22 million in the third quarter versus a profit of EUR 37 million reported in the third quarter a year ago as our strong operating results were more than offset by a EUR 22 million lower unrealized foreign currency gain given FX movements, primarily associated with our U.S. dollar-denominated sports rights. Turning to the balance sheet, we continue to be in a strong liquidity position, closing the quarter with EUR 360 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt outstanding. During the first 9 months of the year, we generated EUR 149 million of free cash flow, a free cash flow conversion rate of 72% compared to free cash flow of EUR 122 million in the first 9 months of 2024. The increase in free cash flow was driven by strong operating cash flow, partially offset by higher sports rights payments. Cash and cash equivalents increased EUR 12 million since the end of 2024 as the strong free cash flow generation was partially offset by the repurchase of 3 million shares for EUR 65.5 million as part of the secondary offering during the second quarter. Looking forward, we continue to anticipate strong free cash flow growth for the full year and a conversion rate above last year's rate of 53%. Turning to capital allocation. Given the significant momentum in the business and the value we are creating, the Board has approved a EUR 100 million increase to our share repurchase program, bringing the total authorization to EUR 300 million. To date, we have repurchased approximately EUR 86 million of stock under the program at an average per share price of $17.96. It is important to note that while we continue to see value in our shares, given our strong and durable growth and expectations for significant operating margin and cash flow expansion going forward, our capital allocation priority remains investing in expanding the long-term growth potential of the company and we will weigh returning capital to shareholders versus additional organic and M&A investment opportunities in both the short and long-term. Moving to our full year expectations for 2025. Given the acquisition of IMG Arena as well as the sustained operating momentum we are seeing across our business, we are raising our full year guidance. We now anticipate revenues of at least EUR 1.290 billion, representing year-over-year growth of at least 17% and adjusted EBITDA of at least EUR 290 million, representing growth of at least 30% versus 2024. This strong EBITDA growth translates to nearly 240 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in 2025. While our upgraded guidance does reflect initial contributions from IMG, please note that given the timing of the acquisition close, the majority of the meaningful revenue and cost synergies we anticipate as we integrate IMG's portfolio of rights will be recognized in 2026. Given that timing, we are providing our initial thoughts for 2026, where you can see the potential benefits of the acquisition. We currently anticipate 2026 revenue growth, including IMG, to accelerate to the 23% to 25% range on a constant currency basis. Please note that foreign currency will be a headwind at current rates, and we will update you on this impact when we provide formal guidance for 2026 on our year-end earnings call. As we mentioned when the acquisition was announced, we expect the IMG acquisition to be accretive to our adjusted EBITDA margins and current expectations for the consolidated company is an additional 250 basis points of margin expansion in 2026. Our strong year-to-date performance, combined with the addition of the IMG Arena sports rights portfolio, positions us for substantial growth in 2025 and beyond. We are well placed to capture opportunities in an expanding global market, deliver greater value to our clients and partners, and drive increasing shareholder returns as we drive sustained revenue growth, expand our operating leverage, and generate robust free cash flow. Thank you for your time this morning. And now Carsten and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Your first question comes from the line of Robin Farley with UBS.

I wanted to clarify your full year '25 EBITDA increase. The release mentions including IMG Arena, but since it's only been two months, is there a way to determine how much of the increase is attributed to IMG Arena versus your organic business? I just wanted to clarify.

Sure. Thanks, Robin. We appreciate the question. So, when you think about the raise in guidance for 2025, from a revenue perspective, the majority of that increase relates to the inclusion of IMG into the 2025 full year forecast, offset by a little bit of foreign currency impact on the overall base business versus our original expectations. When you think about it from an EBITDA perspective, given the strong margin expansion that we delivered in the third quarter, we are continuing to raise our expectations for the full year, including IMG. When you think about IMG overall, what we indicated when we announced the deal earlier this year was that we expect it to be margin accretive to our overall margins. The majority of that will take place, obviously, over the course of the next 12 months, but we do expect upon close that it will definitely be margin accretive at least in the first 3 months following acquisition. So, there is some contribution from an EBITDA perspective with regards to IMG in Q4.

So, some contribution, but it sounds like IMG might be the majority of the revenue increase, but the majority of EBITDA increase is from the rest of your business. Is that the right way to interpret that?

That's correct.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Tilchen with Canaccord.

A little bit of a follow-up on IMG. I'm just wondering now that the deal is closed, if you could share a little bit more about how conversations with some of your existing clients have gone regarding potentially including some of the additional rights in the products that they're taking and when you expect that to sort of more meaningfully show up in terms of the financial results in fiscal '26?

Jason, Carsten here. So, as you know, the deal has closed on Monday. And before, from an antitrust perspective, we couldn't interact with the right holders and also with IMG directly. So, it's very early days. But of course, it's interesting and both of the big leagues here in the U.S. have reached out. PGA have reached out, Major League Soccer have reached out, and we start now discussions. It's an interesting space from a product perspective. It's still very early days, but we are more than optimistic that we can build here some innovations, which will even materialize in '26. So, the spirit is very good. Integration is good for tennis. That is more business as usual. We have now 3 slams. And here the work is more to look on the ones who are early renewal. So, the U.S. Open, they are in 5 years. So, that is more business as usual for us. We focus here more on Wimbledon and Roland-Garros, but we have already a perfect product portfolio, and we can ingest this data. We focus really on the 3 top sports: soccer, basketball, and tennis. And this integration is relatively simple for us because that data goes into a machine, which we already have built. The difference to IMG is we learned now they have 90 to 100 clients. We have around 800. So, this content is flowing in our global distribution engine. And some of the content is already getting into the ready products for some of the sports like Golf, for example, we see very interesting and exciting opportunities.

And maybe just a follow-up for Craig. In the context of Carsten's response there, talking about sort of the magnitude of 7 to 8x increase in the number of clients you can sell these products into. Is it fair to say that the guidance that you've given for fiscal '26 in terms of the acceleration of growth related to IMG is primarily with regards to their core existing client base and not related to sort of some of the upselling leveraging your global distribution network?

No, I would answer that a little bit differently from a financial perspective. I would say that's true for 2025. When you look at the increase that we're looking at for the current year related to IMG, that's predominantly related to their existing business. But when you look over the course of the next 12 months, including what I indicated for 2026, we would expect there to be some significant uptake from our existing clients. So, you'll see that throughout the year, and it should build throughout the year. So, when we talk about our expectations for 2026, we are expecting some significant revenue synergies across our existing business given the relationships that we have and the new content that we've just obtained.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

I want to start with integrity services, up triple digits this quarter. Obviously, a lot of news headlines, MBA, allegations, et cetera. But curious kind of if you're seeing an increased uptake. And given you have a market-leading product there, is this helping kind of from a feature in your negotiations with leagues within the many value-added things you're providing to them. But curious if this is moving up that stream.

Ryan, Carsten here. We are very proud of our integrity service and what we can do for both regulators and law enforcement agencies and the leagues. So, integrity and protection of the game is the highest interest for all the stakeholders. From our perspective, that's something which is enabling us to do the business in the betting markets, which we are doing and to expand our footprint here. Integrity is not really a service which is driving strong profits for us. The commitment here is it is a very strong enabler for going on our betting services. But we are using more and more technology. It's more and more GenAI where we are getting more and more precise on seeing inconsistencies, which is helpful for our partners. You mentioned NBA with the current things, what happens there, but it happens also in baseball and many other sports. So, we are getting more and more accurate on this, which helps sport in a very general way. So that's the commitment from an integrity perspective.

And just as a follow-up, curious from customer-friendly soccer results that we've heard from many of your customers in September. Did you guys see that impacting your MPS business? And if you did, if you're able to quantify it?

Yes, we see some impact when you have only favorites winning in soccer. And as a reminder, more than 70% of our revenues are outside of the U.S., and soccer is the main betting sport. So, at the start of the season, when we see favorites winning, that is from a risk management perspective, more difficult to manage. We see a very limited impact on this in our NPS, and you see the strong growth numbers. But it's, of course, not really supportive from a bookmaker perspective. It's only the favorites that are winning. As a small reminder, yesterday was a different day, and we saw a couple of surprises. So, this is leveling out very, very quickly. But the first quarter was a bit weaker because of this from a trading result.

Your next question comes from the line of David Katz with Jefferies.

In a different direction, Carsten, I've heard some conversation from you in meetings with investors, et cetera, around iGaming. If you could give us some updated thoughts on how you see the opportunity set for you globally for Sportradar in iGaming and how we can start to think about that maybe hitting the model over time?

As mentioned in the last quarter, we are currently in a test period. We're implementing this in Brazil with a holistic approach, starting with client acquisition and utilizing our ad service. Sports serve as an excellent tool for this. After acquiring clients, they transition into the sports betting ecosystem, where we offer a range of products from data feeds to risk management and full platforms. We can use AI to switch channels for clients, guiding them into the iGaming sector, providing suitable products while monitoring engagement and churn, and employing retention tools with visualizations. This represents a comprehensive strategy that we are successfully testing in Brazil. We have a clear focus on scaling up this product once we feel confident, looking at large markets such as the U.S. which we see as very scalable. We believe we need to enhance our portfolio to remain competitive, and we are actively working on this. From an iGaming standpoint, it aligns naturally for us as our clients typically hold licenses for operating in territories with iGaming and sports betting. We have established connections with clients, along with the necessary technology and platform, so we are optimistic about integrating iGaming into our portfolio.

As a follow-up, could this potentially require some capital to ramp up, or is it minimal and not something we need to consider?

David, we are looking in both. So, we are looking into organic investments, and we do this into our teams to build the right games. And we are looking into the market. Is there something which is attractive for us to follow on this strategy? But it follows our general guidance in saying what we do in M&A must be accretive to our margin, which is a tough hurdle to go, but we are looking actively to expand this service, and both are an option, the organic and the M&A expansion.

Your next question comes from the line of Shaun Kelley.

I wanted to revisit the topic of prediction markets. Carsten or Craig, could you discuss the recent announcement involving some of these prediction markets and the NHL, which is a significant partner for you? Specifically, can you explain Sportradar's involvement in that deal, if any? Furthermore, on a broader scale, what is the main use case for customers regarding the prediction market aspect? We understand your participation with traditional sportsbooks, but the interface here appears different. What would the primary value proposition be in this distinct landscape? Carsten, if you could share your insights from your experience at Betfair about how that market operates, it would be helpful.

Shaun, I anticipated that question regarding the prediction market. Please allow me a moment to elaborate, as it's an intriguing topic for all of us. Essentially, there are three key stakeholders involved, and our unique position allows us to connect with each of them. The first stakeholder is obviously the sports leagues and teams. In the last couple of days, I have had discussions with three commissioners to gather their perspectives on the matter. Their viewpoints vary, but a common thread among them is the emphasis on responsible gaming and the integrity of the game. This is their primary concern, and understandably, they also have a financial interest, as they want to benefit from any organized measures we implement. Now, regarding the official data utilized for settling aspects of the prediction market, we find that the NHL, MLB, and NBA hold different viewpoints. While I won't delve too deeply into the specifics, you may have noted the press statement from the NHL, which illustrates this varying interpretation. What brings them together, though, is the focus on responsible gaming; it's crucial to establish a clear set of rules, which is currently lacking. Secondly, we have the states and regulators, whose main priorities are player protection and ensuring that licensed operators comply with established rules within their jurisdictions. Tax interests are also evident among these stakeholders, creating a clear picture. Online sportsbooks, with whom I met recently, express their desire for equal competition. They face challenges in states that are currently not issuing gaming, gambling, or sports betting licenses, which hinders their ability to compete. The issue of illegal sports betting arises when unlicensed operators conduct business in states where licensed operators cannot. In light of this situation, it would be beneficial for us to step back and explore how we can unify the interests of various stakeholders into a functional framework that balances player protection, responsible gaming, and sports integrity. I am confident that progress is being made in this area, as there are numerous arguments that can align all parties involved. As you've likely gathered, we are actively participating in this discussion and view it as an opportunity from our standpoint. We are willing to support these markets once we see necessary clarifications in place and satisfaction among stakeholders. Historically, Betfair has been in this market for over 25 years but did not dominate it. However, Betfair remains successful for a reason. Our global gross gaming revenue is relatively small, reflecting a single-digit percentage. We anticipate a similar trend in the United States, particularly limited to fewer games. The NFL serves as a prime example due to its high liquidity and the speed at which bets can be matched. While a few successful matches can work effectively, the same does not hold true for live betting, which is experiencing significant growth. Around 70% of bets placed are now live. From our perspective, this format may not be suitable for live betting, but it makes sense for high-volume bets, providing there is clear regulation and clarity on operator responsibilities, as well as player protections and safeguards against money laundering. Moreover, involvement from sports organizations is essential to maintain game integrity. I hope this addresses your questions.

That's perfect. And just a very quick follow-up. Have you been approached? And is there a use case for market makers? And have you been approached by those as potential customers of Sportradar?

Yes, we have been approached, and we are discussing this. That's the reason why I said we are ready to go here once the framework is the right framework that we can start to act. But the market maker is playing a main role here. The market maker needs high-quality data, and the market maker needs more or less 0 latency. Very important for them. We have all these services, and we can provide them to them.

Your next question comes from the line of Barry Jonas with Truist.

Can you just give us an update on what percent of OSB handle came from in-play in the quarter and how you see that ramping going forward?

Yes. Barry, as you know, we are not reporting constantly on this handled, but the number is roughly the same as in the last quarter. Comparing it to what we see on our MTS global business, which is roughly 70% handled from online sportsbooks for live, we see here in the U.S. roughly 50%, but the trend is picking up that we get a higher conversion on live betting.

And then just as a follow-up, I believe you have a big sports right contract with UEFA up in early '27. When should we expect renewal discussions to commence? And are there opportunities to expand that contract any further?

We are in active discussions like we are with all our league partners. UEFA is a special case. They are sitting in Switzerland. We are based in Switzerland. I'm in frequent contact with UEFA. Looking now at the opportunities you heard in the call before that we launched yesterday with NBC, the performance view, which was on air. That is something which we do now also for soccer. This is a thing which is very interesting for UEFA because what we can do is we predict the next pixel. And then going forward, we can simulate what might happen in the next 4, 5 in the NBA case, 7 seconds. And these are products where UEFA sees a big use case if it comes to their global distribution and broadcast partners. So, these are things which we're actively discussing, and it involves, of course, the tracking data and the deeper data. So, these are developments which UEFA is more than interested in. And of course, we are more than interested to get deeper embedded in the value creation of this league.

Your next question comes from the line of Clark Lampen with BTIG.

I've got 2 questions. The first is going to be on IMG. You provided a framework for 2026 inclusive of the business and contributions. But I wanted to see if you could give us maybe a little bit more detail qualitatively around sort of what's assumed next year from an integration standpoint and a revenue synergy capture standpoint. Does it take a while, I guess, to have the sort of client-by-client discussions and negotiations that result in those synergies unlocks, i.e., should we imagine that that is a bigger opportunity for 2027 rather than 2026 because there's a time component there that you can't really compress? And then as we think about the overall SRAD customer base, right now, you guys have close to 2,000 customers around 200 strategic and enterprise. Are the majority of those customers, I guess, sort of even beyond the first 200 addressable, I guess, from an incremental revenue standpoint? Or how should we think about how far and wide, I guess, the distribution of this could go?

Sure. Thanks, Clark. So, when you think about the revenue synergies, they will take some time to ramp over the course of 2026. But as I mentioned, we are now out there starting to talk to those clients immediately. Once the deal closed, we were out there having those discussions already on Monday. And we understand that when you look at the kind of content that we're acquiring, specifically soccer, tennis, and basketball, these are some of the most highly demanded sports from a gaming perspective. So, a lot of the clients that we have globally will be looking for these almost instantaneously. When you think about some of the other, what I would call, synergy opportunities, certainly, we've identified items on the cost side that we're looking at that will take some time to ultimately come to fruition over the course of 2026, but the vast majority of this will be on the revenue side. The one thing I will note is that the majority of their customers, the customers that IMG had are customers of ours. So, for those clients, those clients already have a lot of these products and services, where we have the ability to upsell and cross-sell is the other 700 to 800 or so clients that we have globally on the gaming side of the house. And we have already started those discussions, and you'll see that, like I said, ramp up throughout 2026.

As a quick follow-up, regarding the 8% growth in betting and gaming content that we observed this quarter, you mentioned a 250 basis points impact from foreign exchange. Should we anticipate a similar foreign exchange impact on the growth of betting and gaming content when excluding foreign exchange, or was it different in magnitude for any reason?

Yes. We obviously don't guide by individual line item or talk to too much specifics with regards to the makeup of individual line items. But what I will say is your thesis is correct. When you look at the FX impact, the impact on that line item is very consistent with what it would be across the entire company in totality from a percentage perspective. So, when you're looking at growth in that segment or that product grouping, it certainly would be in the double digits without foreign currency. And when you look at that versus how it was trending in Q1 and Q2, it's very consistent performance throughout the course of the year. So, we're seeing nice sustained momentum in our, what I would say is core businesses.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Hickey with Benchmark.

Carsten, Craig, Jim, congrats guys on a great quarter, great guide as well. Carsten, you kind of nailed the predictions market piece. We appreciate that. Your experience certainly shows through. You did say you're in active discussions with all the key stakeholders here. Just in terms of timing from those discussions, should we start to see some flow-through here in '25? Or do you think the divide and the debate is deep enough that '26 is more likely? And then data integrity, obviously, is focal here. But also, curious what you're doing on the advertising side. Obviously, the market is going to heat up. Some of your operator partners are coming in, Polymarket is coming in. And so, it seems like on the media side, you might have some incremental opportunities as well.

We do have opportunities on the media side, which is not an issue. We already have some business with Kulti in terms of client acquisition and advertising services. This presents a nice opportunity, as there is relatively high spending from these participants due to new market entry, making it a less problematic service. We are actively discussing how to develop tailored products for these client groups, and we already offer some services in this area.

And now I'll turn it back to Jim Bombassei for closing remarks.

Everyone will be around for your questions throughout the day. I appreciate you joining the call.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.