“Having spent a few days in Rio and Sao Paulo, I can certainly feel the opportunity and excitement of this market here,” said firm's CEO and founder, Jesper Søgaard, when commenting on the success of the event. “The packed conference is also a testament to the local development of this business.”
Discussing the company's start in 2002, which had just two employees, Jesper explained that one of the key differentiators of Better Collective has always been its ability to attract an audience, take that traffic, send it out and monetize it. The CEO also detailed how the company transitioned from an affiliate company to a sports media business, focusing on developing its brands, and what that means for the Latin American market. “We want to make our brands bigger than every ESPN network in the world,” commented Jesper.
“To do this, we need to increase our editorial skills, so we are adding more journalists to our organization. And there's no question that we have to continue to acquire other businesses,” commented Jesper, adding that he would like to collaborate with this, and potentially acquire many media companies on the continent as part of his expansion strategy.
He also stated that he was keen to form new media partnerships similar to the ones the group currently has, such as The Daily Telegraph in the UK and The New York Post in the US. Anticipating how these media partnerships might work in Latin America, Jesper reminded the audience that Better Collective is already collaborating with Peruvian website Depor.
To initially grow from an affiliate to sports media, the company focused on developing brands, monetizing them and employing local talent to ensure quality remained unabated. In applying this manual from Europe to North America, he explained how sensitive the company was to the different mindset of sports fans in North America. One of the key parts of its success in North America was getting the right local talent.
Local team is key
In Latin America, Jesper sees more similarities with Europe than with the United States. “We care about the same sports; we have more individual countries with different cultures. Also from a partner point of view, we will be working with businesses that are more similar to this region than to North America.” He also recognized that there are still many differences, hence the need to hire a local team to ensure that the company does not miss these cultural gaps between countries and continents.
“By relocating some of our existing team from Europe to Brazil, while also hiring new Brazilian members, we are looking to bring out the best in our company culture, refining it in Europe and North America. On top of that, we also thought we'd spice it up a bit by adding some local knowledge, culture and context," he added.
Summarizing the company's strategy of bringing top-notch leaders to a new region to introduce best practices and company culture, matching local talent through direct employment, mergers and acquisitions of existing brands, as well as media partnerships, Jesper summed up: “It is a proven and successful manual that we are now applying in South America.”
When asked about the main differences in the markets he has noticed since his visit to South America, Jesper highlighted the strong influence of social media and content consumption being very “video-oriented and at a faster pace” than in Europe or North America, as well as the importance of individual companies focusing on different countries, cultures and many local markets rather than one large market.
Jesper added that “there is no doubt that Brazil is the largest market and has the greatest potential”, which is why the company chose the country as a starting point and base. “It's a huge country, with a huge population, and you are really passionate about sports. So for us it is an ideal market.” He also pointed to the government's new gambling regulation as another important factor: “It has all the right ingredients to be a fantastic market for us and what we're doing, and it's the highest priority market for us in this region.”
As far as further expansion is concerned, the company is looking to government regulation for guidance, with Colombia and Argentina showing strong growth potential. “We hope that Brazil’s new regulations will inspire others to follow,” he added, noting that regulation is important for both business and government, in addition to consumer protection, along with the importance of increasing the education available to betting fans. sports across the continent.
Ambassador Jairzinho was at firm's stand
The expectation of growth is immense, which made the company decide to exhibit at the Afiliados Brasil and Gambling Brasil events, where it took, in addition to its commercial and technical teams, the company's brand ambassador, Jairzinho, a former player and three-time world champion with the Brazilian National Team.
Better Collective is a digital sports media group founded in 2004 in Denmark that operates in the sports betting and online gaming sector. The company offers affiliate marketing services for companies in this market, as well as products and services for sports bettors, such as websites, forums, guides, reviews and betting tips. Better Collective owns several industry brands such as Action Network, Vegas Insider, Sites-de-Apostas.net, as well as the world's leading CS:GO site, HLTV.
The company has offices in several countries, including Denmark, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil.
Source: GMB
