BETTING BIG ON CPL'S FAN APPEAL
Broadcaster's deal with tech company could give the league a global profile
The Canadian Premier League is about to get interactive.
Following in the footsteps of professional sports leagues around the world, the CPL will be adding betting components to its product, giving viewers an opportunity to wager on different aspects of individual games.
On Thursday, Mediapro Canada, which owns the broadcast rights to the CPL, announced a partnership with Genius Sports Ltd. for exclusive rights to distribute video streams from CPL and Canadian Championship games, which will increase the league's exposure outside of the country.
Starting in 2022, fans will be able to place bets on CPL games, coinciding with the federal government's plans to legalize single-game betting across the country.
“The deal with Genius, who is already a partner of ours in other parts of the world, is important for the broadcast rights we have in Canada,” said Mediapro Canada CEO Oscar Lopez. “It's a partnership we want to take advantage of when it comes to sports in Canada. When we purchased the broadcast rights to the CPL in Canada, it also included the audiovisual betting rights. There are three or four major companies who deal in sports betting rights and Genius Sports is one of them. They presented us the most complete offer to us in all aspects.”
Genius Sports is a data and technology company based out of London, England. It provides data management, video streaming and other services from numerous professional leagues around the world to bookmakers and media companies.
Genius Sports is the exclusive data provider to sports books for NASCAR, the NFL, NBA, AHL, the English Premier League, the German Football Association and Argentina's Superliga.
“We're a technology company at our core. We're focused on data-driven solutions and we sit at the intersection between sports rights holders, media companies, streaming and broadcast providers and sports betting organizations,” said Sean Conroy, COO of Genius Sports. “We provide data-driven solutions that connect those part of the sports ecosystem.”
Essentially, viewers worldwide will be able to place bets on different aspect of CPL games starting next season.
All CPL games are broadcast via OneSoccer, a subscription-based streaming service owned by Mediapro.
Along with the CPL, OneSoccer also owns the broadcast rights to the Canadian national teams and various CONCACAF competitions, including the Gold Cup, which is taking place over the next three weeks in the United States.
“The partnership we established with Mediapro Canada is twofold,” Conroy said. “On one hand, we're helping Mediapro take the live video streams from the Canadian Premier League and we're distributing that video content to our international contacts of regulated sports betting partners.
“That does a few things for Canadian soccer. It drives its reach and profile internationally. It drives new revenue opportunity for the sport, and then secondary, we're working with Mediapro in Canada to help integrate some of our data and statistical content and are using that to create new and engaging experiences on the OneSoccer platform.”
Once single-game betting becomes legal in Canada, the new partnership will make the CPL appealing to markets outside of the country, where otherwise they don't know the CPL exists.
Soon, there will be an interest in an FC Edmonton versus Forge FC match outside of the teams' respective markets as anyone in the world will be able to wager on which player scores the first goal or who picks up the most yellow cards in the contest, among other prop bets.
It's already a way of life in the United Kingdom, where one can place a variety of wagers on different sporting events.
“We're delighted to see the regulation come to the Canadian market and that is really going to drive opportunity to sports in a number of ways,” Conroy said. “What we do know about those who tend to wager on sports, they do tend to be more engaged in the activity and they do tend to consume more media and watch more content.
“So, we do expect to see a positive relationship in regulated sports betting and ultimately viewership and sports engagement in Canada.”
The new betting laws in Canada will also allow Mediapro and the CPL to tap into different revenue streams, which will help grow the league, now in its third year of operations.
The eight-team league is currently playing the first portion of the 2021 season in Winnipeg at IG Field, before teams return to their respective markets to play in front of fans for the first time since 2019.
Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the league had to play a tournament format in P.E.I., which it dubbed the Island Games.
“Unfortunately, after our first year, we had the issue with COVID-19, which hampered the growth of the league,” Lopez said.
“This year is another year of transition, and next season we hope to get back on the original plan we had for the league, where we want to continue to grow the presence of Canadian soccer.
“This deal will help us grow our league and will allow us to keep expanding our digital platform to help get in line with other leagues around the world.”