France’s top Basketball League selects Sportradar for all-encompassing rights deal

The agreement marks the first basketball deal for Sportradar since the acquisition of Synergy Sports

Sportradar, a leading global provider of sports data intelligence and sport entertainment solutions, today announced a comprehensive extended agreement with Ligue Nationale de Basket (LNB). The new agreement covers data collection and distribution, AV rights, media rights distribution, bet monitoring to ensure integrity, automated production and streaming service and the continuation of the OTT platform.

The multi-year deal begins at the start of the 2021/22 season and will see Sportradar become the official data partner of the LNB.  Sportradar will collect and distribute the LNB’s in-game data through Synergy Stats, their best-in-class courtside data collection system.

Synergy Sports, now a division of Sportradar, partners with all of the LNB teams through the use of their AI driven Automated Camera System and also serves as a distribution partner for the league’s AV rights.  Synergy Sports provides basketball teams, leagues and federations with a full end-to-end technology platform that offers automated video production and graphics.

Since the 2020/21 season, Sportradar has distributed the LNB’s media rights internationally and utilised its full technological capabilities to create the OTT platform LNB.TV which showcases game action and editorial content to enhance fan engagement. Coverage is live-streamed as well as being available on-demand.

Finally, the agreement also includes the provision of Sportradar’s advanced and proven bet monitoring system, the Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), to monitor all LNB games for potential match manipulation. Last year, Sportradar Integrity Services detected over 500 suspicious matches across global sport and has reported more than 5,500 in the past 15 years.

David Lampitt, Managing Director, Sports Content and Partnerships at Sportradar, said: “The LNB is one of the most important basketball leagues in Europe and we look forward to expanding our relationship with them to grow the sport further and drive new commercial opportunities.

“Basketball is a strategically important sport for Sportradar, and the acquisition of Synergy Sports has extended our 360-degree capabilities in the creation and distribution of data and video content, enabling us to deepen our relationships with key basketball leagues and federations around the world. We are delighted to partner with the LNB and that they have put their trust in us to deliver advanced data, analytics and technology solutions.”

Michel Mimran, Managing Director, at Ligue Nationale de Basket, said: “This new agreement is very exciting for the LNB and will expand the way we work with a trusted partner. Sportradar will now provide us with end-to-end solutions on many fronts including AV production, AV rights as well as data collection and commercialisation. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with Sportradar for years to come.”

This contract is a win from Genius Sport despite their strong lock-in with basketball federations due to their Livestats system. Sportradar’s recent acquisition of Synergy Sports provides them with a system featuring the same capabilities. Basketball organisations now have greater choice from providers who can offer like-for-like services and are no longer reliant on one business for this service and creating a competitive market.

Essentially basketball bodies now have more choice of providers who can offer like-for-like services and are no longer reliant on one business for this. It’s a positive move for sports federations, leagues and clubs as it offers them more choice and is a move away from a monopolistic approach. They don’t have to lock-in with one provider anymore. It’s much better for the industry to have a competitive market.