Genius Sports Review
7.4/10Official-data gatekeeper listed on the NYSE since 2021, exclusive on NFL play-by-play, Next Gen Stats, betting feeds, and watch-and-bet streams through the 2029 season, on Premier League, EFL, and SPFL data through 2028-29, and on Serie A and the NCAA beyond that, with eight US states requiring its NFL feed for in-play betting, BetVision in 100+ books after one season, and every price sales-gated.
Our read
400+ leagues and 240K events are the company's own counts, while the under-a-second DataCo figure over 4,000+ matches a season and Second Spectrum's skeletal tracking anchor the latency story.
Every NFL lane locked to the 2029 season with eight mandate states behind it, DataCo to 2028-29 with the CAT settlement proving rivals get a delayed feed, Serie A won in 2025 to 2028-29, and the NCAA to 2032.
BetVision scaled from 6 to 100+ partners in the 2025 season and in-stadia collection runs 4,000+ DataCo matches a year, with no SLA or uptime figure published anywhere.
A public developer portal and public GitHub org are rare for this segment, spanning API, managed trading, embedded player, and ad-stack modes, though no turnkey lane exists.
The $111.6M FY2025 net loss and the new $825M term loan weigh against 31% revenue growth, $136.2M adjusted EBITDA, and a clean regulatory record.
Nothing is published for feeds, trading, or BetVision, and what is known is buyer-hostile: the roughly 4x NFL reprice of 2021 plus mandate states that remove walk-away leverage.
Methodology. Our own score, a weighted average of six dimensions, tilted toward coverage and official rights. Weighted on the sports-data scale, where coverage and latency carry 0.25 and official rights 0.20 ahead of delivery, distribution, trust, and commercials, an arithmetic in which the rights book does the lifting while the loss-making P&L and sealed pricing hold the total down. Read the full methodology
- The NFL gate is total and dated: every official data and betting-stream lane is exclusive through the 2029 season (extended June 11, 2025), and in the eight official-data states an in-play NFL product cannot legally run on anything else.
- The UK football lock has case law behind it: Football DataCo rights to the PL, EFL, and SPFL run through 2028-29, and the 2022 CAT settlement ended with Sportradar stopping in-stadia scouting and buying a delayed secondary feed from Genius.
- BetVision is a working flywheel: from 6 partners to 100+ across the 2025 season, live wagers around 74% of handle through the player, and live NFL betting near 30% of NFL handle in the season's first six weeks.
- The rights book keeps compounding: Serie A landed August 4, 2025 through 2028-29 after Stats Perform walked away mid-cycle, the NCAA runs to 2032, and the Pac-12 signed March 16, 2026.
- Public developer docs and a public GitHub org, transparency most of this segment refuses, on top of $669.5M FY2025 revenue growing 31%.
- Still deeply loss-making: the FY2025 net loss widened to $111.6M from $63.0M, and Q1 2026 alone lost $55.5M, against adjusted EBITDA that is positive but far smaller.
- The moat is rented: data and streaming rights cost $85.6M in Q1 2026 alone, the NFL deal runs at an estimated $120M a year in cash and stock, and Legend added the first real debt, an $825M term loan plus a $220M revolver.
- The pricing history is part of the file: the 2021 switch to official NFL data repriced feeds at roughly 4x the prior era, and in mandate states operators cannot walk away from the feed.
Any US book running in-play NFL (mandate states leave no alternative), UK-facing operators that need official Premier League, EFL, or SPFL data, books that want watch-and-bet streaming as a product edge, and operators outsourcing pricing and risk to a desk that already serves 300+ books.
Cost-sensitive books in non-mandate markets where unofficial feeds price far lower, operators shopping for a turnkey sportsbook platform (Genius does not sell one), and rivals or products that need raw real-time Premier League data, which exists only as a delayed sublicensed feed.
Markets & licensing
Sports data is mostly an unlicensed business, so Genius Sports carries registrations where US state rules demand them instead of a gambling-license stack. The count stood at 41 licenses or equivalent across US states, territories, tribes and Canada at the Massachusetts temporary-vendor announcement (February 1, 2023), Tennessee's SWC register carries Genius Sports Media Inc, and Ohio approved it as a supplier. Nothing UKGC or MGA exists because nothing is required for data supply in those markets. The regulatory lever that actually shapes this business is the official-data mandate: eight states require league-official data for in-play betting, which converts the NFL contract into compulsory supply. The 41-count is the company's own and Tennessee is the one state register carrying it (July 2026).
Eight states require official league data for in-play bets: Tennessee, Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Virginia. Tennessee wrote the mandate into statute with no league request needed (repeal bills have been proposed), Illinois applies it to live and prop betting, and Michigan triggers it for in-play only after a US-headquartered league asks in writing, with a commercial-reasonableness escape for operators. For in-play NFL in those states, Genius is the compliance path through the 2029 season, and the supplier-registration trail (41 licenses or equivalent, 2023) covers the vendor side of the paperwork.
Genius runs from London and holds the market's defining data asset: Football DataCo's exclusive official live betting data for the Premier League, EFL, and SPFL through 2028-29. Data supply requires no UKGC authorization, so there is no license to check, and the 2022 CAT settlement is the enforcement story instead, with Sportradar agreeing to stop unofficial in-stadia scouting and take a delayed sublicensed feed. UK-facing books buy the official product here or run delayed.
- US state supplier registrationsUnited States + Canada
- Sports wagering supplier and vendor registrations held where state rules require them for data and related services · 41 licenses or equivalent, Feb 1, 2023 · no fresher count published
- Tennessee SWC vendor registrationTennessee
- Genius Sports Media Inc on the Sports Wagering Council's vendor register, in the one state whose official-data mandate is statutory · Register indexed Jul 2026 · mandate needs no league request
- Massachusetts temporary vendorMassachusetts
- Temporary sports wagering vendor status announced ahead of the state's 2023 launch · Feb 1, 2023
- Ohio supplier approvalOhio
- Approved as a sports gaming supplier · Announced, not register-indexed
Licensing tier: A registration trail is the whole file, and that is a fact of the category rather than a gap: this segment's regulation runs through data mandates, not supplier licensing. The number to watch is the 41-count, three years old (Feb 2023) with nothing fresher published.
Downstream, the feeds run wherever licensed books buy them, with more than 300 sportsbooks worldwide (Jul 2026).
No restricted-market list exists on the vendor side, since market access is the operator's problem rather than the data supplier's (Jul 2026).
Sportsbook & verticals
A vendor's lineup often mixes its own builds with other companies' products plugged in. When the sportsbook is third party, a second company stands behind your contract.
Integrations & engineering
One contract and one API instead of a separate deal per studio, feed, or PSP. Here's what connects, how fast, and on what stack.
Four lanes into one relationship. Data and odds arrive over REST and streaming APIs documented in the open on the Developer Centre, with sport-specific docs for soccer, basketball, and NFL Next Gen Stats distribution and API-key or OAuth2 auth for calls. BetVision embeds as an interactive player with stats overlays and an integrated betslip inside the operator's own app. Genius Trading Services layers managed pricing and risk on top of the feeds, and FANHub runs the ad and audience side. There is no turnkey sportsbook platform, so Genius always lands inside a stack the operator already runs.
None published (July 2026). The open docs move technical evaluation ahead of contact, and the real calendar comes out of the sales process.
Products & tools
Four ways to buy the same moat: official data and odds feeds built on exclusive NFL, Football DataCo, Serie A, and NCAA rights, the BetVision watch-and-bet player, outsourced pricing and risk through Genius Trading Services, and the FANHub ad stack that Legend's media brands now feed.
Official Data & Odds Feeds
Real-time official data and odds built on the exclusives: NFL play-by-play and Next Gen Stats through the 2029 season, in-stadia Premier League, EFL, and SPFL collection distributed in under a second through 2028-29, Serie A through 2028-29, and NCAA postseason data to 2032, sold as feeds and APIs across 400+ leagues.
- NFL: official play-by-play, Next Gen Stats, and the official betting feed, exclusive to sportsbooks and media globally through the 2029 season (extended June 11, 2025)
- Football DataCo: 4,000+ PL, EFL, and SPFL matches a season captured in-stadia and distributed in under a second, with sub-second skeletal tracking added in the 2024 extension
- Serie A data and betting streams through 2028-29, signed August 4, 2025 after Stats Perform's mid-cycle exit
- NCAA official data to licensed sportsbooks through 2032, covering March Madness and every postseason tournament, plus NASCAR since 2019
- Coverage runs 400+ leagues and 240K events, with 700+ sports organizations partnered (July 2026)
BetVision
The watch-and-bet lane: an embedded low-latency player for NFL, soccer, and basketball with stats overlays and an integrated betslip, launched September 2023, and the sole official route to live NFL streams inside a sportsbook internationally.
- Launched September 2023 with Caesars, Fanatics, and BetRivers, FanDuel added later, Hard Rock Bet through an expanded deal on September 8, 2025
- From 6 partners to 100+ across the 2025 season, unique devices up 35%, average time spent up 25%
- Live wagers around 74% of handle through the player, and live NFL betting near 30% of total NFL handle in the first six weeks of the 2025 season
- Serie A betting streams signed through 2028-29 feed the player's soccer lane
- Ad sales inside BetVision joined the offer with the June 2025 NFL extension
Genius Trading Services
Managed pricing, trading, and risk tooling for more than 300 sportsbooks, run by 500+ trading staff on models tied to the exclusive feeds, with the liability staying on the operator's book.
- Pricing and risk delivered as a service, with no claim anywhere that Genius takes book risk
- Models built on the exclusives: NFL markets on Next Gen Stats, in-play soccer on DataCo's sub-second in-stadia data
- Own BetBuilder engine, with HollywoodBets running a market-first launch
- Case-study results: Admiral at 14% margin on EPL feeds, Betplay beating CPA targets by 20%, Tipico on market uptimes
- 20 years of trading experience behind the desk (July 2026)
FANHub, Media & Legend
The audience-and-advertising stack: FANHub ad tech, exclusive representation of NFL in-game ad inventory and BetVision ad sales since the June 2025 extension, and, from April 30, 2026, Legend's Covers.com, Casino.org, and Casino Guru with 320M annual visits.
- Legend closed April 30, 2026: $800M cash plus 10.1M GENI shares at closing, announced February 5 at up to $1.2B with a $300M earnout
- Financed with a new $825M term loan and a $220M revolving facility, the first heavy debt on the balance sheet
- Media revenue of $41.7M in Q1 2026 beside $146.2M from betting (6-K, filed May 7, 2026)
- Sports Innovation Lab, the fan-data shop, closed at the start of the 2025 NFL season
- GeniusIQ powers the Madden NFL Cast alternate broadcasts (2024 and 2025 Thanksgiving on Peacock)
Platform & capabilities
Everything the product does out of the box. If a feature isn't listed, the vendor either doesn't offer it or doesn't say.
Risk maturity
Operators check this capability first, and depth varies enough between vendors to grade it.
The history
Sales decks get rewritten for every deal. A dated record doesn't.
Betgenius started in London on March 26, 2000, founded by Mark Locke and Steven Holmes, and became Genius Sports in the 2016 merger with SportingPulse International. The 2021 dMY Technology SPAC merger put it on the NYSE as GENI in the same month the NFL chose it as exclusive data partner, a deal paid partly in penny warrants that made the league Genius's largest shareholder from 2021 to 2025, holding around 8% worth roughly $135M as of June 2025. Locke still runs the company he co-founded, now a 2,600-person operation across 18 locations (July 2026), and one that turned $669.5M of FY2025 revenue (+31%) into a $111.6M net loss before closing the Legend acquisition on April 30, 2026 with its first heavy debt attached.
Brands & clients on the platform
Corporate
- Second Spectrum (2021)
- Sports Innovation Lab (2025)
- Legend (2026)
Leadership
Milestones
- 2000
Mark Locke and Steven Holmes found Betgenius in London on March 26, the data-and-odds business the company still runs on.
- 2016
Betgenius merges with SportingPulse International and the combined company takes the Genius Sports name.
- 2019
Football DataCo hands Genius exclusive official live betting data for the Premier League, EFL, and SPFL from the 2019-20 season, and NASCAR signs on in May.
- 2021
The company lists on the NYSE in April via the dMY Technology SPAC merger, wins the NFL partnership the same month (four years plus two one-year league options, 18.5M penny warrants plus 2M per extension, an estimated $120M a year in cash and stock), and buys Second Spectrum for $199.4M in June.
- 2022
The Sportradar CAT litigation over DataCo scouting settles on October 11, with Sportradar taking a delayed sublicensed Official FDC Secondary Feed from Genius through 2024.
- 2023
SoftConstruct settles into a multi-year data license (January 4), the NFL swaps 4M later-year warrants for cash, BetVision launches in September with Caesars, Fanatics, and BetRivers, and EGR North America names Genius its Sports Betting Supplier.
- 2024
Football DataCo extends through 2028-29 with sub-second skeletal tracking added (August 5), the Second Spectrum stack goes live as the Premier League's semi-automated offside tech, and FIBA's long-term extension is reported in July.
- 2025
The NFL extension lands June 11, rolling every exclusive to the 2029 season and adding ad-inventory representation, the NCAA expands to 2032 in May, Serie A signs August 4 through 2028-29, Hard Rock Bet joins BetVision September 8, and Sports Innovation Lab closes at the season's start.
- 2026
Legend is announced February 5 (up to $1.2B) and closes April 30 for $800M cash plus 10.1M shares on a new $825M term loan, and the Pac-12 signs March 16.
Where they're pushing next
- Media and audience through Legend (Covers, Casino.org, Casino Guru: 320M visits in 2025) plugged into FANHub ad tech
- BetVision beyond the NFL, with Serie A streams secured through 2028-29 and soccer and basketball already in the player
- College sports on the NCAA deal to 2032 and the Pac-12 partnership signed March 16, 2026
Awards & recognition
Longevity and ownership
Switching vendors is expensive, which makes the company's staying power part of the purchase. What the contract says about your data decides how expensive an exit gets.
Genius Sports vs alternatives
No two vendors describe themselves the same way, which makes their own claims hard to line up. Every name here answers the same fields, so you can see where this one sits against the closest alternatives.
| Attribute | Genius Sports | Sportradar | Stats Perform | LSports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 | 2001 | 1981 | 2012 |
| Team | 2,600+ | 3,900+ | 3,300+ | — |
| Sportsbook | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Licenses | Tennessee, Massachusetts, Ohio | — | — | — |
| US market | Available | Available | Available | Available |
| Pricing | Not published | Not published | Not published | On request |
| Trading model | Managed | Managed via MTS or tools-only | None sold | Tools only |
| Bet builder | Own engine | — | — | — |
| Sports | — | — | — | 100+ |
The take: Sportradar is the mirror gatekeeper, holding NBA, NHL, and MLB against Genius's NFL and UK football, with a deeper overall rights book and the same dark pricing. Stats Perform owns the FIFA World Cup 26 betting lanes and Opta but walked away from Serie A, the rights Genius then took through 2028-29. LSports is the value alternative when official rights do not matter to your markets. Pick Genius when in-play NFL or official Premier League data is non-negotiable, and budget for pricing power sitting on the other side of the table.
Pricing & terms
Genius Sports quotes pricing per project. Here's how the model and the terms are structured.
Sales-gated across every line, with multi-year rights-backed contracts and zero published rates (Jul 2026)
Turnkey
Support & account management
You can't demo service before you sign, so what a vendor puts in writing is the only floor you can hold it to.
Frequently asked
The things operators actually ask before signing.
What does the NFL exclusivity actually gate for a sportsbook?+
Everything real-time. Genius is the exclusive distributor of official NFL play-by-play, Next Gen Stats, and the official betting data feed to sportsbooks and media worldwide, and the sole supplier of official low-latency watch-and-bet NFL streams to books internationally. The F-1 documents the 2021 structure: a four-year initial term with two one-year league options, paid in 18.5M penny warrants plus 2M more per extension, a package valued at an estimated $120M a year in cash and stock. The June 11, 2025 extension rolled the exclusives through the 2029 season and added exclusive representation of NFL in-game ad inventory plus BetVision ad sales. The gate bites hardest in the eight states that require official league data for in-play betting (Tennessee, Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Virginia): Tennessee mandates it by statute with no league request needed, Illinois requires it for live and prop bets, and Michigan for in-play only after a written league request.
Can a book get Premier League data without Genius?+
Not in real time. Football DataCo's exclusive official live betting data for the Premier League, EFL, and SPFL has sat with Genius since the 2019-20 season, collected in-stadia at 4,000+ matches a year and distributed in under a second, and the August 2024 extension carries it through 2028-29 with sub-second skeletal tracking added. The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal fight proved what the exclusivity means in practice: Sportradar sued (case 1342/5/7/20), DataCo counterclaimed, and the October 11, 2022 settlement ended with Sportradar stopping unofficial in-stadia scouting and buying a sublicense from Genius for a delayed Official FDC Secondary Feed through 2024. That is the alternative: delayed data, at a price, from Genius itself.
What did the Legend acquisition add, and what did it cost?+
Legend closed on April 30, 2026 for $800M in cash plus 10.1M Genius shares at closing, against a February 5, 2026 announcement of up to $1.2B including a $300M earnout. It brings Covers.com, Casino.org, and Casino Guru, media properties with 320M annual visits and 118M unique visitors in 2025, and plugs them into FANHub, the ad and audience stack that also holds exclusive NFL ad-inventory representation since the 2025 extension. The financing is the other half of the story: a new $825M term loan and a $220M revolving facility, the first significant debt in company history. Guidance moved with it, from a standalone $810-820M revenue plan in March 2026 to $990M-$1.01B with $270-280M adjusted EBITDA once Legend consolidates from May, the third dated guidance set of the year (May 7, 2026 Q1 print).
Does Genius take trading risk off my book?+
No. Genius Trading Services supplies pricing, trading, and risk tooling as a managed service for more than 300 sportsbooks (July 2026), with 20 years of trading experience and 500+ trading staff behind it, and the liability stays on the operator's book. The models ride the exclusive feeds, NFL markets built on Next Gen Stats and in-play soccer priced on DataCo's sub-second in-stadia data, and the BetBuilder engine is Genius's own, with HollywoodBets running a market-first launch. The published results are case studies and read that way: Admiral at 14% margin on EPL feeds, Betplay beating CPA targets by 20%.
How healthy are the finances behind the moat?+
Read both lines. Revenue compounds: $669.5M in FY2025, up 31%, and Q1 2026 grew another 31% to $187.9M, with adjusted EBITDA positive and rising ($136.2M in FY2025, $24.0M in Q1 2026). The net line tells the other story: a $111.6M FY2025 loss that widened from $63.0M, another $55.5M lost in Q1 2026 with $30.9M of stock compensation inside, quarterly rights costs of $85.6M, and cash of $197.4M before the Legend close, after which an $825M term loan sits on the balance sheet. No solvency question hangs over it, and the adjusted-EBITDA line funds the model, but the risk mix changed in 2026 with real debt service now running beside the rights bill.