Sportradar has allegedly relayed live betting data from courtside at NCAA basketball games, despite not having permission to do so.
Sportradar is the official data provider for the NHL, NFL and NASCAR whilst also having a partnership with the NBA to provide statistics, analysis and match odds through its platform Betradar. However, the official exclusive provider of data for the NCAA is Sportradar rival Genius Sports meaning that no other company should be providing third parties or bookmakers with live statistics from NCAA matches.
It has been alleged that Betradar had live odds and live statistics from Sportradar analysts who were courtside at NCAA basketball games and were feeding them the information. The NCAA agreement with Genius Sports states that no data should be passed onto any bookmakers and that no party other than Genius Sports is permitted to collect data for commercial exploitation, saying in a statement that “the NCAA does not have a contractual relationship with any entity to provide official NCAA sports wagering data and has not authorized any entity to provide statistical data to sportsbooks.”
Sportradar has replied to the allegation by saying “this allegation and story is clearly an attempt by a competitor to soil our name without a clear understanding of the facts. It is industry norm that there is, and has always been, a significant amount of betting that takes place with collegiate level sporting events and demand from licensed sportsbooks for data to offer these. Sportradar, along with competitors in the industry, has provided open-source data coverage to licensed sportsbooks in the US and globally for some time to ensure the highest quality product can be used by sportsbooks.”
The NCAA and Genius Sports could potentially take action over this matter in order to ensure that no Sportradar analysts are present at NCAA games, therefore ensuring that they will not be able to provide live data and statistics.