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Sportradar banked a strong second quarter as it looks to the U.S. and immersive technologies for future growth.
The sports data and technology giant saw revenue rise 23% year-over-year to $180.2 million.
- U.S. revenue leapt 66% to $29.6 million, but the company still took a $5.6 million loss in the country.
- Sportradar’s gambling-related revenue in the rest of the world remained its core revenue driver, growing 21% year-over-year to $95.5 million.
“The U.S. is getting more and more important,” said Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl. “We don’t see the growth slowing down.” Koerl added that the company’s U.S. losses have been steadily shrinking as the sports betting market grows.
“I think it’s very obvious that this is a scalability exercise,” he said.
Koerl noted that U.S. sports fans have a “deep understanding of how data is consumed,” which he noticed regularly when he lived in New York.
“I would walk to Times Square, and I saw so much data for baseball or football. We don’t have that in Europe.”
Going Meta
It may take until the second half of this decade, but Koerl sees metaverse and VR technologies eventually being integral to the sport-consuming experience and Sportradar’s business.
“I think sports and betting is perfect for virtual reality and the metaverse,” he said. “All the big producers of gaming consoles are very interested.”
