Sportradar and Genius Sports have settled their long-running dispute on the data collection and distribution rights of English and Scottish football.
Yesterday the sportstech rivals confirmed that they had reached a joint settlement on the data rights and exclusivity terms for the Premier League, English Football League (EFL) and Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) granted by Football DataCo (FDC).
The legal conflict dates back to 2020, when Sportradar challenged the legal structure of Genius ‘exclusive data rights’ agreement with FDC.
Under the terms of the agreement, Genius Sports’ subsidiary Betgenius won the rights to collect live match data from over 4,000 FDC-syndicated football matches and distribute the data both domestically and internationally.
Sportradar alleged that the deal had breached UK and EU Competition Law, as the terms of its framework allowed for no suitable alternative for data collection to be processed.
Launching its challenge, Sportradar had argued that Genius Sports and FDC should find a fair resolution that enabled third parties to collect data from the three leagues, such as offering a sub-licence to third parties.
Meanwhile Genius issued a counter-claim against Sportradar for infringing upon the data collection rights of its deal, stating that it had used in-stadia scouts to collect data during matches – in which it had been afforded a zero-tolerance policy by the FDC.
Yesterday, a joint-statement by Sportradar, Genius Sports and FDC detailed: “The litigation has been resolved to the satisfaction of the parties.
“The resolution enables FDC to maintain the right to continue to license and market FDC data, as it determines.”
“Genius Sports too shall maintain the right to provide low latency exclusive Official FDC betting data rights through 2024, and Sportradar, who has agreed to refrain from unauthorized in-stadia scouting of Premier League, Football League and Scottish Professional Football League matches, has purchased a sublicense from Genius Sports that provides rights to a delayed Official Secondary Feed through 2024.”
All parties have agreed to maintain the remaining terms of the settlement as confidential.
(Note to reader: The article has been re-posted to include the statement of all parties involved in the litigation).
