National Football League data rights partner Genius Sports reported second-quarter earnings Wednesday morning. Revenue doubled year-over-year but it reported a big loss. Shares of Genius Sports were up about 2.5% on Wednesday morning.
Genius provides NFL play-by-play stats and Next Generation data for sports gambling companies, allowing the firms to set betting lines, and offer in-game micro bets.
Genius said it made $55.8 million in revenue for the quarter, which ended on June 30, up slightly from $53.7 million in the first quarter and up 108.4% from the same quarter last year. It reported a net loss of $464.1 million in Q2, an increase from a $7.4 million loss in the same quarter last year. The company said $414.5 million of that loss was for stock-based compensation.
Last April, Genius signed an exclusive deal valued at $1 billion to provide official data essential to NFL bets – a significant driver for betting companies in an estimated $40 billion online gambling sector. That means if sports gambling providers that want to cash on bets this season using official NFL data have to do business with Genius.
On Tuesday, Genius added Caesars and WynnBET sportsbooks to its portfolio. It added Sports Illustrated’s sportsbook on Wednesday. Those companies joined DraftKings, which agreed to a partnership last month. Genius makes money from the deals by taking a fixed fee and through a profiting sharing model.
But it still needs to add FanDuel to the mix, a deal that could be announced within the first few weeks of the NFL season. The league selected DraftKings, Caesars, and FanDuel as its top-tier betting partners, allowing the companies to leverage NFL intellectual property and content around its offerings.
A record 45.2 Americans could bet on NFL games during the 2021 season, according to the American Gaming Association. The firm added Americans have bet “$27 billion on sports in the first seven months of 2021, generating more than $350 million in federal, state, and local taxes.”
Disclosure: CNBC parent Comcast and NBC Sports are investors in FanDuel.