At the Leaders Conference taking place in London’s Stamford Bridge stadium, the world’s largest esports company ESL announced their multi-faceted partnership with the world’s largest sports data service provider Sportradar.
Under the terms of the agreement between the two organisations, Sportradar will develop a full range of products and services for ESL. On the statistics side, Sportradar has exclusive rights to process and distribute real time match data going deep into fantasy-level detail, and will also offer live scoring delivered to customers across the globe. In addition, Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System will monitor 450 betting operators around the world to ensure ESL has the best and broadest insight into any suspicious betting patterns and behaviours around its competitions. ESL and Sportradar want to tackle the growing rise of betting in esports, and challenges that come with it, taking an active stance to ensure integrity.
Speaking at the launch of the partnership in front of some of the world’s key sports media, ESL CEO Ralf Reichert said: “The rapid growth and expansion of the esports industry presents us with an ever increasing myriad of not only opportunities but also challenges, the most important of which is arguably the preservation of the integrity of the competitions. ESL has led the charge on integrity in esports for many years with proprietary anti-cheating software and the recent introduction of anti-doping policies in its tournaments. With an ever increasing volume of betting on esports competitions, expanding our anti-fraud initiative to also include match fixing, collusion other activities related to illegal, underage and irresponsible betting, was the next logical step in our efforts to preserve and promote integrity across our many competitions. Sportradar as the global leader in sports data was the logical partner for such a cooperation as it is not only the most experienced but also most committed data provider in the industry. We look forward to taking this important and historical step with them to ensure a continued growth of the esports marketplace.”
Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl, who joined Ralf Reichert at the launch in London, added: “Esports is without a doubt the fastest growing sport globally across all measurables: prize money, fan viewership, sponsorship revenue. We are incredibly excited to form such a trustful and comprehensive partnership with the leaders in this space. They are at the vanguard of this exciting sector. By partnering with us, they have today made a clear statement that they want to be the esports innovator with the most sophisticated, most engaging and most beneficial relationship with their data and those interested in that data. On our part, we will be processing and delivering data in accordance with our industry-leading standards, ensuring that end users get the fastest, most accurate and most engaging data possible. I would also like to underline what Ralf said about integrity. The most exciting sport in the world will struggle without a clear focus and commitment towards integrity. During our negotiations, our FDS was at the front of their minds and it encouraged us. It encouraged us and convinced us that ESL are the right partners for Sportradar to work with. We are embarking on some exciting times, with CS:GO, Dota 2 and other titles all coming online in the next few months and we are proud that ESL chose us as their partners for the future”.
About ESL
ESL is the world’s largest esports company, leading the industry across various games with numerous online and offline competitions. It operates high profile, branded international and national leagues and tournaments such as the Intel® Extreme Masters, ESL One, ESL Pro League, ESL National Championships, as well as grassroots amateur cups, leagues and matchmaking systems.
ESL covers a broad field of services in gaming technology, event management, advertising and TV production, fully catering to the needs of the esport’s ecosystem. With offices in Germany, Russia, France, Poland, Spain, China, North America and partners in many other countries, it has a truly global footprint.
For more information about ESL, please visit: www.eslgaming.com
For more information about Betradar’s new eSports product line click here.