Sportradar, the global provider of sports data intelligence and sport entertainment solutions, on Tuesday announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire InteractSport, a sports data and technology company with partnerships across a range of leading sporting organisations with a particular depth and expertise in cricket.
The acquisition is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals.
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world with a global fanbase of more than two billion. By combining Sportradar’s leading commercialisation and distribution framework with InteractSport’s products, content creation capabilities and subject matter expertise, Sportradar is creating the opportunity to unlock significant growth within regional and global markets for its customers.
Currently, InteractSport partners with leading cricket boards such as Cricket Australia and the England & Wales Cricket Board, in addition to their other well established and distinguished sports partners such as Netball Australia and Football Australia.
Commenting on the development, Carsten Koerl, Sportradar Group CEO, said: “This acquisition provides Sportradar with the opportunity to widen its data and content offering. With cricket being one of the most popular sports in the world, we see this as a growth opportunity for the company, especially given the significance of the sport in the Asian region.”
“I have tremendous admiration for what Sam Taylor and his team have accomplished to date. I look forward to working with him and InteractSport in continuing to drive value for our sports partners and deliver great products and services to our customers around the world,” he added.
Sam Taylor, CEO of InteractSport, said: “InteractSport has always been driven by innovation and delivering cutting edge solutions that benefit sports organizations and their fans. Aligning with Sportradar is a natural step in achieving our company vision – it enables us to scale our operation to develop exciting new products, reach new markets and deliver even greater benefit to our current and future customers.
We are excited by the opportunity to combine InteractSport’s digital and data capture solutions with Sportradar’s market-leading capabilities in commercialisation and distribution, and the value this can bring to our platform partners, their digital and high performance teams, and the billions of fans the sports we work with have around the world. Our team is thrilled to be joining the Sportradar family and we can’t wait to get cracking.”
The agreement with the Melbourne based company will be the third acquisition for Sportradar to date in 2021, most recently with the announcement to acquire US based Synergy Sports. Sportradar continues to expand its Asian presence, recently partnering with the Asian Football Confederation and the K League to expand its regional footprint.