Sports data analytics startup Sportradar is offering a year of free access to its services to early-stage startups it deems worthy in its new Acceleradar program. The data comes in real time from more than 400,000 events in 48 sports a year. The Swiss company raised $44 million last year in a deal with Revolution Growth, Mark Cuban and Michael Jordan, placing Revolution co-founder and Washington sports mogul Ted Leonsis on the board.
“Supporting the startup ecosystem has long been a core principle at Sportradar," Sportradar US head of business development Benn Gurton said in a statement. "We believe this is the perfect time to launch a freemium plan for sports data, and our hope is that this program will launch a number of companies and innovative applications for sports fans, teams, brands and other industry stakeholders.”
Sportradar has been growing quickly since the 2015 investment, doubling its staff and its client list thanks in part to agreements with the most prominent professional sports leagues in the country, including the NFL, NASCAR and NHL. The data it collects is potentially useful to a range of services, including updating the apps made by the professional leagues it works with, along with third parties like fantasy sports leagues, traffic apps helping people time when they hit the road or even restaurants calculating when they will get busy.
Sportradar is just one of several investments made by Leonsis of late at the intersection of sports and technology. He became co-executive chairman of esports franchise Team Liquid, taking up a majority share in the high-stakes video game team with a group of investors including fellow Revolution partners Steve Case and Donn Davis, and former NBA star Magic Johnson. His company, Monumental Sports, also debuted the new Monumental Sports Network service this year, a digital service with a mix of sports and related bonus material.
