Sportradar launches social media sports integrity solution

Strengthening its integrity services, Sportradar has launched a sports solution to support organisations in safeguarding professional athletes from social media abuse. 

The service, created by Sportradar’s Intelligence & Investigation Services team, will use advanced techniques, technology and 20 years of sports industry experience to create a new solution that addresses and protects athletes from the growing problem of online abuse.

Andreas Krannich, Managing Director Integrity Services at Sportradar stated: “Maintaining the integrity of sport and ensuring that it’s safe, fair and enjoyable for all, has long been our priority. 

“Now, with this new service, we’ve strengthened our position in this space by safeguarding the athletes who compete in it and protecting them from online harm and social media abuse.

“We are providing a tangible output that our partners can share with their athletes and we’re providing support to those partners in pursuing an appropriate course of action. The service we now have in place can act as a deterrent to future online abuse and create real change, particularly when people see the impact it has.”

Sportradar’s new integrity service will be made available for all sports federations, leagues and governing bodies with the solution designed to protect the mental health health of its athletes. The investigation, proactive intervention and disruption service is also expected to discourage future trolling and abuse.

As a result of the new solution, ‘troll’ or burner accounts used for abuse will be identified while organisations will also be provided with information from Sportradar’s team as to how the individuals conduct online abuse in an attempt to mitigate it. Appropriate action will then be taken, which could include removing abusive accounts from social media platforms and working with law enforcement to bring legal proceedings.

Krannich added: “We believe this safeguarding solution can have a similar positive impact on sport as our Fraud Detection System has had on match fixing, where we’ve reported more than 5000 suspicious matches across global sport in 11 years.”

The product has already been trialled earlier in the summer at the Exo-Tennis Series, which featured players from the ATP and WTA Tours including Germany’s Dustin Brown and the US pair of Taylor Townsend and Sachia Vickery who shared abusive social media messages. 

Following an investigation, Sportradar’s new service provided the event organisers with details of the problem accounts along with a set of recommendations to prevent future trolling and abuse.

Prior to the launch of its new solution, Sportradar’s Intelligence & Investigation Services team has already assisted more than 80 partners in identifying and investigating integrity threats to countries. These include federations, clubs, national anti-doping organisations and law enforcement.

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