Pulse
SPORTS BETTING SPORTSGRID
SportsGrid: optimising data to super-serve customers
Jeremy Stein, CEO and Co-Founder of SportsGrid, reflects on the company’s journey from its pre-PASPA days to now and discusses acquisition opportunities, international expansion and entering the casino vertical.
different distribution platforms. Tat was the formation and origin of SportsGrid. We began in 2017 pre-PASPA, and we were very fortunate that PASPA was repealed within our first year of operating.
Were you prepared for that to happen, or did it come as a surprise?
Jeremy Stein CEO & Co-Founder SportsGrid
Could you begin by telling us more about SportsGrid and its formation?
SportsGrid is the number one free ad supported TV network in the sports genre. We're syndicated on over 30 different platforms. Te business was formed when my Co-Founder, Louis Maione, and I had a thesis that sports is simply data. You don't need a body to recap last night's Yankees game and you certainly don't need one to predict tonight's Yankees game.
We wanted to put predictive technology that I developed whilst playing daily fantasy sports in a full-time capacity together with Louis' media assets. Te idea was that by putting those two together we could produce cost-effective content where we could turn a profit.
Of course, there is a cost to develop live original video content and syndicate it across all our
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Louis, prior to even starting SportsGrid when we were having several hour-long meetings every single day for six months, would tell me sports betting is going to become legal within two years. And I honestly did not believe that. I thought it was a much longer time horizon, but we decided it would be best to jump in no matter what. Louis has always been in the boat that this was going to happen, and he was spot on.
How do you view the sports betting landscape in the US and how that journey has evolved over the last seven years?
It's interesting. When PASPA was first repealed, it was a land grab. Te government said grow in ways that you never thought were imaginable and that applies to a company like SportsGrid, but it also applies to the operators. You saw mass marketing and now what you're starting to see is a little bit more optimisation on the fringes.
We're starting to see the proliferation of same- game parlays where the customers and their
journeys are really understood. You're starting to see a lot more social interaction and more personalisation. Tere is a shift from mass land grab to 'how do I interact with an individual consumer?'.
How do you reflect on the company’s journey over the last seven years?
Initial challenges were everyday run of the mill startup stuff. When we first began, it was very difficult to convince investors to join our journey because PASPA hadn't been repealed. Candidly, it took about two years for us to really scrape together the capital that we needed to get to where we are today.
Landmark agreements were central to this with all our distribution partners, particularly our close relationship with both FanDuel and BetMGM. Tose two deals have really propelled SportsGrid to where it is today.
Ever since PASPA was repealed it has been up and to the right. We also don’t just have the PASPA tailwind, but we are a connected TV company, so we have the connected TV tailwinds as well. Last year was the first year in the United States where homes that do not subscribe to cable outnumber those that do.
You touched on investors. Are you and Louis still the majority shareholders?
Louis and I still control the business. We have
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