SVG Sit-Down: Genius Sports' Sean Conroy Is Bullish on Betting-Fueled Content Opportunities The commercial director shares the latest on gambling-data tech, new partnership with DraftKings and NFL By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Thursday, August 19, 2021 - 9:54 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With sports betting flourishing across the U.S., sports-data and technology companies are honing their offerings and services in an effort to stake their claim as the partner of choice for sports leagues, rightsholders, bookmakers, and more.
Genius Sports' Sean Conroy: The most forward-thinking leagues and federations are harnessing betting to create more-immersive fan experiences.
One company that has risen rapidly in the industry is Genius Sports. The technology, data, video-streaming, and integrity-services provider already boasts a portfolio of more than 170,000 official live sports events per year, thanks to partnerships with the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, and, in the UK, the Premier League.
Genius has been active in the news this week with the acquisition of Spirable, a data-driven video-marketing company, and the addition of industry veteran and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Steve Bornstein as president, North America. The company is also gearing up for the start of the lucrative NFL season with a recently announced deal with popular online sportsbook DraftKings, under which Genius Sports will offer a suite of NFL-related products for the upcoming season.
SVG sat down with Genius Sports Commercial Director Sean Conroy to discuss what the London-based company brings to the table, what's behind its quick rise in sports media, and what he's most excited to see play out in the sports-betting space.
For those in the industry who aren't aware, can you detail Genius Sports' role in the sports-betting ecosystem? And how do your services factor into the live-sports-production sector?
At our core, we're a technology company. We're a specialist in sports technology and software. We sit at the intersection of sports, betting, and media, connecting sports leagues and teams with sportsbooks, broadcasters, media, and streaming companies. We help to connect the entire ecosystem, providing technology layers and data solutions that allow each set of partners across those areas to work together and thrive.
For sports, we work with leagues, federations, and teams to help them collect, package, and distribute their official data and live video content. This is central to how they engage their fans, create efficiencies at an operational level, and ultimately generate revenue and commercialize their content through media and sports betting.
We work alongside sportsbooks to help take the official data and video that we collect in partnership with sports and use that to power everything from split-second odds to outsourced trading solutions, live streams, and more across thousands of events. We effectively help sportsbooks engage their existing customers with engaging content and support the actual provision and delivery of those core betting markets that sit within their platform.
We think less specifically around sports betting and more about how do we engage fans? How do we deliver meaningful content and experiences for fans?
What does it mean to be the official data provider of a sports property, and how do these deals benefit Genius and its customers?
Official sports data is facts and information relating to an event or match that is directly sanctioned and approved by the relevant governing body. Official data deals provide sports with a fair return from betting on their competitions while creating the fastest, most accurate and reliable source of information to power engaging betting and media products.
What's important to know is that each sport or league is different. They have a disparate set of needs and requirements. What we do when we start working with any sport is, we sit down and look to understand how they operate their sport today. What are the tools that they have in place to collect and distribute live data? How do they capture and produce live video content to serve fans?
We then build solutions that allow them to better optimize their current operations. For example, we may work with a league to install a new official live-data scoring system. We may work to implement our cameras to support machine-learning-based optical data-tracking collection. There's a variety of different types of tools and technologies that we use.
Fundamentally, what we are looking to do is provide the right technology to the right league to help them collect and control their official data. Really, no two deals are the same, but the principle is to provide technology, to support the creation of robust and high-quality data and content and serve that to the fans within their ecosystem in a smart way.
Let's look at the NFL. You just announced that you will be working with DraftKings on a suite of products for the upcoming season. What's most exciting about what you can accomplish with a partner like DraftKings?
We are delighted with the long-term strategic partnership with DraftKings. We will be working with one of the U.S.'s premier sportsbook brands to provide them a range of official NFL data, from the core data and information required to run the betting markets to next-gen stats (which is the rich feed of information collected and produced from the players to track ball speeds and player speeds). We're taking all of this data and working with DraftKings to drive and innovate that experience for bettors around the NFL.
Our vision is to help power and support the full DraftKings player lifecycle. We'll be helping DraftKings acquire new players, taking t
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
SVG Sit-Down: Genius Sports' Sean Conroy Is Bullish on Betting-Fueled Content Opportunities The commercial director shares the latest on gambling-data tech, new partnership with DraftKings and NFL By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
