GMB - How is your first business trip to Brazil is going?
Carsten Koerl - You're well informed. It's my first business trip. Private, of course, I was in Rio, I was in São Paulo. Enjoyed some leisure time here. Now it's business because the market is regulated. And I have to say, as a European, you have to get used to the South American living style. It's not as planned as I'm used to from other countries. But it's very impressive, very emotional.
It is a huge country with exciting opportunities. It's different. It's different to understand the stakeholders. Sport is a stakeholder, the state is another, the operators here. But I'm super excited and I'm interested.
Is Brazil very important for Sportradar?
Yes, it's on my top priority list. That's the reason why I'm here. That's the reason why I'm speaking very intensively with potential clients, the stakeholders, and the team. It is a country with 220 million people now. It is developing in my mind from the real numbers more than 100% per year from the addressable market, but as we all know, we have now the regulation kicking in.
It's now time to build structures to make that on the long term. So, it's not interesting for Sportradar and for me to look for quick money. It is interesting to build the structures to make a long-term sustainable business.
What are the company plans for LatAm and Brazil, the main market in the region, due the size of the country and population?
We try now to find our partners in sport. Conmebol is the first partner. We are working very closely with Brazilian football, Serie A and Serie B teams, the federations there, so we made some good steps forward here. Then the plan is to extend the reach with the existing operators to cooperate with the government about important topics like integrity, match-fixing, the complete regulatory framework.
That's more consulting and helping to get it done, but Brazil is our main focus here. We are looking to other countries. We have business in Venezuela, Peru, in many of the Latin American countries, Colombia, but Brazil purely from a size perspective and from a sport perspective is a sweet spot for us.
So here is the place that you see the most opportunity for growth?
Yes, that's the place to be. Looking for more growth opportunity no other country in the world is providing on scale the opportunities which we see in Brazil. That's the reason why we focus here. We put a lot of energy and resources into it, and we are building it for the long term.
How Artificial Intelligence can contribute for this work for Sportradar?
We are technology business as you know, and we are sitting on the biggest data pools for sports. Sport, data, liquidity information, information about sport fan. A digital company with the content which we have can't survive in the next three years without massively exploring artificial intelligence. We’ve been doing this for years. We are investing more and more into it. It will create a new experience about the sport and it's not only for betting, but also completely for the fan and the experience of how he is watching it.
There are many topics, for example hyper personalization, the sport you like, you get a customized view on this enriched with the data which we know you want to have. It gives you information about other things. It gives you, for example, ticketing or sponsoring and merchandising opportunities or sports betting opportunities. I think usage of technology, deployment of AI to achieve all this, that's an exciting way forward. It will change many things in the next years.
Besides football, which sports do you believe will provide the next opportunities for the Industry in Brazil?
Personally, I am lousy football player. When I played football, I played that with a lot of passion, but not with a lot of talent. And personally, I'm much better in skiing, which will be not sport for Brazil, I'm totally sure about this. But table tennis, in which I was also good, is a sport that we see and promote.
Sports is something really big in the country with a lot of passion because it's young and demographic. So, sports play a main role in sports betting in the future. We see also good opportunities in volleyball and basketball here in Brazil, where we already explore some of the properties which are working quite well. NBA is especially very popular here. We see a lot of demand around. Yes, but if you ask me beside football, that would be the main sports, and of course, tennis.
As you know, for the second time Brazil is the most suspect match-fixing country in the world. What challenges does Sportradar face in working for the integrity of sports?
I think it is too much in the media and, I told this in many, many meetings. Match-fixing is all around the world. It's a very small proportion. It’s also a small proportion of the matches. The total games in Brazil, but it is there, and it is always there where you have money involved, you have people unfortunately with the criminal energy that are trying to manipulate things for their own purpose.
I think that what we should do is focus on establishing a clear framework, clear rules, how to monitor this. Then we should help the police, that they get educated around this with information that sports radio or other companies can pass on to them. We think we are best positioned because we are interacting with every bookmaker here in the Brazilian market.
We see a lot of patterns and liquidity streams with our systems which we have, and we can use this. To see patterns for potential manipulations. Then we need to educate the police and the law enforcement agency. What do they do with the information which we give them? Because they should investigate. And then we need to speak with sports, what structures should they have that they can somehow react on this? If you know a trainer is manipulating or a goalkeeper, what is the penalty which you give him for that action? This framework needs to be established. We are working in the background on this also together with the Government and, if we work consistently on it, I'm totally optimistic that we will have a good framework not to totally rule this out, but to detect it and to go with the strategy behind it.
From a bookmaker perspective, I met not one bookmaker here in Brazil who is not cooperating and saying we want to have a fair sport. And that's the main value of Sportradar. Also, we are playing as a team, we are playing fairly, so we provide these services for free helping to develop this market and get out of all these negative pressures, which I see at the moment. Yes, it's there. I hope I explained that we need to work on this, but we need to work to together on this and every stakeholder I was talking is very interested to get it.
What are your impressions about BiS SiGMA Americas in Brazil, São Paulo?
My first impression it's totally chaotic. It took me 2 1/2 hours from the airport to my hotel. It took me 1 1/2 hours from the hotel here to come. It's a huge place. So many people, so energetic, everywhere there is an action. That's what I see here. I really like it. I do not complain about this because it's something it gives some… If you have 30 million people in such a condensed space, it shows how much opportunities are around.
And SiGMA is reflecting this. You see a lot of new companies, a lot of fresh faces, which I haven't seen before. This industry here is fun, it’s vibrant. People which are searching for opportunities, which are using this actively which are deploying technology and the spirit which I see here is very positive. I see smiling faces, I see not one who is sad and looking down, it's smiling faces, it's energy. It's a lot of enthusiasm. That's what I would describe it.
Source: Exclusive GMB
