In a move to enhance its international standing as a partner for sports media outlets and betting operators, Oddschecker Global Media has unveiled a rebranded identity as FairPlay Sports Media (FPSM).
The company, owned by multinational investment firm Bruin Capital, will retain the same structure regarding its brands. This will see Oddschecker, WhoScored and SuperScommesse continue as its flagship brands across its key markets.
By moving away from the group identity of Oddschecker, FPSM aims to promote itself as a sports media network as opposed to a purely odds-based service, reflecting its extensive partnerships with sports media and publishers.
Source: FPSM
“This is more than a new group name,” said Stuart Simms, Group CEO of FPSM, in the group’s debut official statement under its new brand identity.
“The launch of FairPlay Sports Media allows us to empower our customers to better compete in sports betting, while delivering significant efficiencies and added value to our partners through the use of our game-changing betting technology.
“We’ve made various strategic acquisitions – with more in the pipeline – to best place ourselves to create more engagement with sports bettors and the data they need, the independent content they demand, and we’re excited to showcase how this realignment and BetTech focus will benefit everyone in the FairPlay Sports Media Network, particularly in the US market.”
Fintech, Martech, Adtech …. BetTech
As mentioned by Simms in FPSM’s announcement of its new identity, technology will play a core part in the company’s operations going forward. This will come in the form of, as the group’s CEO explained, BetTech.
The ultimate goal of the BetTech platform is to “level the playing field for all sports bettors across pricing, payouts, bonusing, intelligence and more”, FPSM explained in its statement. In a media briefing, Simms went into further detail.
“The reason why we’re coining the phrase BetTech in general is that we see it as an emerging trend where if you think simplistically, the cost of computing, the access to data has never been as big, and so for me, BetTech has really started.
“When we say the US market is relatively mature. I think betting technology is still relatively immature. The sharing of data between operators and affiliates is fairly limited, whereas in my experience of working retail the brands and the publishers and the networks used to work hand in glove in sharing a lot more information and data.
“Betting is fairly immature when it comes to programmatic personalisation and the use of data at scale to provide the consumer experiences relative to retail where I’ve seen it used at scale in a very compelling way.”
On a broader scale, relating to the brand’s global vision and positioning, the rebrand from Oddschecker to FPSM will help to “tell a broader story about the overall group,” Simms informed industry journalists.
The Oddschecker brand has wide recognition, with activity in 73 different markets. FPSM aims to keep it that way, Simms emphasised, whilst continuing to build on the foundation of its existing brands and media and operator partnerships.
“We’re not going to step back from the brands we operate,” he asserted. “Same thing with SuperScommesse, which already operates with an incredible loyal customer base in the Italian market.
“Fairplay helps us tell the broader story about the entities and the capabilities we have in the Italian market, but we’re still going to go to market with those consumer facing brands to really make the most of the technology that we’ve got, whilst also then complementing that with the work we’re doing with Gazzetta dello Sport, for example, and DAZN.”
Insider Sport Analysis: The coining of new terminology for emerging technological concepts in industry is nothing new – take fintech, for example. With BetTech, Oddschecker is aiming to position itself as a leading force in both sports media and sports betting, in a move indicative of the ever-growing interconnectedness of the two sectors.
Stay tuned to Insider Sport for more updates….
