[Elvis]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... g-s-future

Jordan, Cuban, Leonsis Put Millions on Sports Betting's Future

Scott Soshnick

Drawn in large part by the “inevitable” legalization of sports betting in the U.S., NBA owners Michael Jordan, Mark Cuban, and Ted Leonsis are investing millions of dollars into Sportradar AG, a sports data company that counts global bookmakers among its top customers.

The full investment round in the Swiss company totals $44 million and is being led by Revolution Growth, a private equity firm founded by Leonsis, who owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards and NHL’s Washington Capitals. The former AOL executive said he was attracted to Sportradar because of its deep experience in sports betting, which is legal and common in much of Europe.

"Overseas, gaming and fraud detection have been perfected. So now that they’ve come to the U.S., I just felt they were just so well-positioned," Leonsis said in an interview. Unregulated gambling on the NFL is well over $100 billion, Leonsis estimated, and the amount of money at stake makes it "probably an inevitability" that sports betting will be legalized in the U.S. Sportradar’s "experience is going to translate and augur well here because we’re years behind."

The trio of NBA team owners, along with Revolution Growth partner Evan Morgan, will join the U.S. advisory board of Sportradar, which bases its U.S. operations in Minneapolis. The company has exclusive partnerships to distribute the data of the National Football League, National Hockey League, and Nascar. Follow a football game down by down on your iPad, for example, and you’re probably looking at a Sportradar data feed; look up a player’s stats online, and that’s likely to be Sportradar data too.

None of investors would disclose their specific investment or Sportradar’s valuation.

The Plan

“Data drives the sports world, and Sportradar is the leading global provider,” Cuban said in an email. The tech billionaire bought the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million in 2000. “With our support I think they can be much bigger.”

That’s the plan, said Ulrich Harmuth, the company’s U.S. president. Sportradar started in 2001, building its European foundation in the betting and gaming industries, where it also provides a level of fraud detection for betting houses and leagues.

In the U.S., where betting on sports is illegal in 46 states, the company has focused on building its business with media and technology companies, including Google, Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Sportradar also provides data to daily fantasy sports companies such as FanDuel, which along with rival DraftKings is currently at the center of a legal and regulatory debate about whether fantasy sports are gambling, and if they are, what should be done about it.

“If the U.S. market opens up for gaming we are ready to shoot,” Harmuth said. “We have the products readily available. We’re in the perfect position to also serve customers in the U.S. gaming market.”

’Inevitable’

Jordan, who became the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets in 2010, noted the ongoing imbroglio, saying in an interview that data “goes way beyond sport.” He declined further comment on the investment in Sportradar.

Unlike the NFL, which takes a hard line against sports betting, the NBA has been warming to the idea of legalized gambling on games. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said betting on American professional sports is inevitable and that the league would eventually profit from movements in states like New Jersey to legalize sports betting. Silver said betting makes fans more engaged in the games, similar to the effect of fantasy sports.
In any event, Harmuth said Sportradar is keen to do business with the NBA, whose data contracts are up for grabs next year. Having three owners as investors won’t hurt the company’s chances of winning the business, he said.
“That might certainly be one area where they can help us,” he said.

[bubbaramfan]

"There's a sucker born every minute" WC Fields

[Elvis]

[Elvis]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... companies/

NFL owners may have to dump investments in DFS companies

Posted by Mike Florio on November 13, 2015, 7:29 AM EST

[Editor’s note: FanDuel is an advertiser of PFT and PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio. Also, NBC Sports has an equity stake in FanDuel.]

With DraftKings and FanDuel being told by the New York Attorney General to cease and desist doing business in New York, the next step for the NFL could be telling its owners to relinquish their investments in businesses that are on the verge of being declared illegal gambling in the state where the league is headquartered.

According to the New York Post, owners like Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Robert Kraft of the Patriots could be forced to sell their stakes in DraftKings if the efforts of A.G. Eric T. Schneiderman result in a finding that daily fantasy violates New York law.

Per the Post, the issue of NFL owners holding ownership interest in DFS companies could land on the agenda of the next ownership meeting, scheduled for December 2.

The Post also reports that the NFL, which helped lobby for the 2006 federal law that created the DFS industry, currently isn’t lobbying Congress on behalf of DraftKings and FanDuel.

Unlike other major sports leagues, the NFL itself resisted making an investment in DraftKings or FanDuel, a decision that a source with knowledge of the situation previously told PFT was personally made by Commissioner Roger Goodell. Last month, Goodell explained that, despite the federal endorsement of fantasy games, the 50 states have a say in what is and isn’t legal.

“[S]tates are the ones that make the determinations about whether something is legal or not legal,” Goodell said. “We follow the law and we will do that. It is not, from our standpoint and the league, we have not taken any equity positions. We have allowed this to happen on advertising. There are sponsorship opportunities in the stadium, but not with our logos and marks. We’re following other leagues in that case, in the sense that other leagues have taken equity positions. We feel that a cautious approach is the right way but we’re protecting our game.”

That cautious approach could include reversing course on the league’s conditional embrace of daily fantasy, if New York succeeds in its efforts to eject DraftKings and FanDuel from the state. It’s also possible that the NFL will pre-emptively sever ties with the industry, if the NFL believes that it’s only a matter of time before a majority of states determine that DFS games are gambling, which either should be banned from a given state or heavily regulated and taxed, like other forms of gambling.

[Stranger]

what a mess

[majik]

As long as they dont mess with season long fantasy leagues, host sites, and payment sites they can go after the DFS.

PayPal currently wont let you openly pay for fantasy sports leagues which sucks.