SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Amir Mirzaee, Chief Commercial Officer & Managing Director of Bayes Esports, assesses how to heighten the esports experience for all, and just what the company has in store for the future.
As esports viewership soars and esports betting expands globally, it opens the door to a vast amount of business opportunities. But, with so many different avenues and potential investments to make, it is more important than ever to consolidate your strategy and invest in the right tools that will bring success long-term.
I expect to see even more companies turn their attention to offerings that can provide sustainable growth and access to future key demographics.
Here at Bayes Esports, we are doing just that – shifting our focus to more profitable opportunities to reach our clients maximum turnover potential. After closing out the year, we see that we hit over 48 per cent in growth in 2023, and we want to make the necessary strategic decisions to keep building on this.
We are doubling down as we explore new major tournament IPs, an expanded distribution network, an enhanced product suite, and more. Our goal is to make esports solutions a more affordable investment for our clients by bringing our streamlined, mainstream offering to the market.
Let’s dive into what we expect for the future of esports and how it is shaping our outlook for 2024.
A single integration to unlock all things esports
Lately we have seen a growing demand in the industry for more marketplaces and services that cater specifically to the esports sector. More businesses want to get a slice of esports, however, it is challenging if they don’t have a team of esports experts on hand to manage their odds and markets.
The fragmentation in esports vs traditional sports also remains to be an obstacle. New game titles are constantly launching with huge success, as we recently saw with Mobile Legends: Bang Bang becoming the second most viewed esports event in history and highest ever for MLBB.
In order to capitalize on each new title, it often means new data models and integrations for the data consumers, service providers, and app builders.
Betting operators are now looking for more comprehensive solutions, whether that’s coverage of more tournaments, new game titles, or products and services covering the entire commercial value chain.
We are listening closely, and shaping our products and services accordingly, and the new products we develop will open the doors to new customer opportunities and unlock wider demographics.
Our fantasy products, for example, led us to expanding into the North American and select Asian markets, and our Odds services allowed us to break through to the LatAm and African regions.
We are also focused on providing enhanced tools for every step of the customer’s journey. Similar to Genius Sports and Sportradar, Bayes Esports is a rare example of an esports-centric data provider that has a fully fledged product suite.
There are traditional sports betting operators that wish to get into the esports world but don’t have the expertise or knowledge of this complex and dynamic industry.
On the other hand, there are betting operators that have a team of esports experts working behind the scenes, but their betting solutions still need access to the official live data from rights holders or
tournament operators. No matter what stage they are at, we are providing everything they need in our comprehensive marketplace.
One service we will be expanding on in 2024 is our Bayes Live Odds solution. Our odds strategy addresses the variety and dynamic movement of intellectual property in the market through our multi-feed platform. #
Backed by esports experts and a data science team, our live odds product provides optimal margins and the highest uptime across a variety of game titles, tournaments, and markets. We bundle our products together so a customer can access live match data, live match predictions, and our auto traded odds feed.
Each product can be used as a standalone or in combination with one another. Customers can pick and choose who they get their odds from, while Bayes Esports handles all changes in the back end. It is easier than ever to access reliable and accurate odds built on official data.
Our commitment to establishing integrity in esports
The esports industry is also recognizing the importance of official data and its integral role in the integrity of the industry. For esports to grow to a level that is on par with traditional sports betting, we must ensure its reliability and credibility is intact. We are committed to
increasing the white market by adding more customers to our portfolio. By empowering our product and distribution partners, we aim to make white market products available to the market ubiquitously, we jointly combat gray market products. While a number of major operators have recently taken steps to operate in the white market, we still have a ways to go as an industry.
Other methods to boost the integrity of esports are by designing a framework that sets the standard for ethical conduct, data handling, and age related considerations. Bayes Esports has historically created the standards and policies that shape the industry and we will continue to do so.
Until the industry matures further, we are actively monitoring the market. Whether it’s the misleading language used to advertise scraped data, protecting the data rights holders, or giving additional brand opportunities to those using official data, each measure is a step towards an industry built on integrity.
Fortifying our market presence in esports data
With the integrity of esports and our customers’ needs at the core of everything we do, we are leveraging the strong foundation we have built in order to keep growing. Through our exclusive partnerships with ESL FACEIT Group and BLAST, we are the leading official live data rights suppliers for CS2 and Dota 2 esports data.
This allows us to deliver comprehensive data and betting solutions for tens of thousands of matches, and we are expanding on this even further. CS2 and Dota 2 have historically brought in the most revenue for Bayes Esports, so by focusing on more profitable opportunities and game titles, we are able to add more value to our marketplaces and services.
We have the most expansive and refined content calendar in esports history and are set for a great year ahead. We are looking to sign five or more content partnerships this year, acquire new distribution partners, and develop top-level products. Join us at ICE London or IEM Katowice next month to get an exclusive look at what we have in store for 2024.
