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Better Collective’s leadership announced that the Playmaker Capital integration is going as planned from Q1 onwards, and once those assets are fully integrated, Better Collective (BC) is assured of taking position as outright media leader for South American gambling audiences.
According to company CEO Jesper Søgaard, the Playmaker acquisition has already provided “great opportunities” for revenue growth just three months after the deal was finalised in February.
Flemming Pedersen, BC CFO, added that the acquisition fits perfectly with Better Collective’s ambitions to be relevant across both categories of sports betting and media consumption.
The Q1 update showed that at one point during the quarter, three out of the top five sports podcasts belonged to BC, solidifying the company’s media relevance strategy. Both Pedersen and Søgaard confirmed that preparations are well underway to ensure this media growth continues ahead of the upcoming Euros and Paris Olympics.
However, there were some offsets to the firm’s media assets caused by Google’s search engine update introduced a few weeks ago.
Søgaard assured that Better Collective is currently working closely with all of its partners to mitigate the impact, highlighting that there has been some positives drawn out of the situation – with some of the company’s proprietary sports media assets receiving improved rankings and increased traffic as a result of the update.
More on the specific market performance, Søgaard commented that he is pleased with the company’s outlook for North America, saying that Better Collective has “never been stronger commercially” in the region.
The CEO added that performance in North America received a significant boost from the ‘notable successes’ of the regulated market launch in North Carolina, together with strong numbers coming from the Super Bowl.
Still, the group’s North American performance did not go without some turbulence, with a 37% YoY decline in operating profits caused by the transition of a number of company websites to a revenue share model.
H1 will see Better Collective’s leadership prioritise the transition of remaining North American websites onto revenue share contracts. Revenue share transition will see the North America network reach parity with the European network and lower US media costs.
For the full breakdown of Better Collective’s Q1 results, click here.
