Sportradar extends Big Ten Network deal in latest US push

Sportradar has signed another US-facing deal as it continues to seek momentum in the country’s sports scene, securing a renewal of its agreement with the Big Ten Network (BTN).

The two-year extension will focus around development of BTN’s B1G+ OTT platform during the 2024/25 college athletics season, as the duo target an enhanced user and fan experience.

This experience will include integration and visualisation of sports data, whilst the Swiss-based firm will also utilise its sports technology and data solutions to manage the OTT platforms backend and frontend, UX/UI design, as well as third-party integration.

Sportradar was first selected as B1G+’s sportstech support firm back in 2021, delivering live dreams of Olympic sports, video on-demand basketball and American football coverage and channels specific to certain university teams.

Founded and headquartered in St Gallen, Switzerland, Sportradar has been pursuing North American expansion as a key objective over the past two years, having signed agreements with multiple betting firms, sports leagues and teams and media outlets.

In September 2021 the group received a major boost to its North American business via an IPO listing on the New York Nasdaq stock exchange, described at the time by Chief Commercial Officer Ed Blonk in an interview with SBC News as providing backing to ‘accelerate our growth strategy’.

In the years since, the US has become one of the company’s most important markets, revealing in its trading update for 2022 that revenue from the country had increased 78% for the full year and 77% in Q4 to €41.2m ($44m).