Sportradar has come up against a regulatory obstacle in its takeover of fellow sportstech and data rights firm IMG Arena, with the acquisition coming under a competition investigation.
The deal, announced in March 2025, has come under scrutiny of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), who are assessing whether Sportradar’s takeover of IMG Arena would violate the Enterprise Act 2002 by affecting competition in UK business.
The sectors in question will likely be the aforementioned sports technology and sports data spaces, as well as potentially the B2B sports betting services sector, which Sportradar and IMIG have both played a key part in for many years.
Nasdaq-listed Sportradar has emerged as one of the world’s leading sportstech and data companies, maintaining partnerships with some of the biggest global sportsbooks including William Hill, FanDuel and DraftKings. It has a particularly strong presence in the US via deals with both major sportsbooks and the likes of the MLB and NBA.
Sportradar maintains a significant presence in UK sports, media and wagering via its sports partnerships with the likes of UEFA. Though it could be argued that its competitor Genius Sports has a slight British edge as the partner of FootballDataCo (FDC), the data rights holder for the Premier League and EFL.
IMG Arena, meanwhile, is a London-based enterprise with a huge footprint across international sports. Its portfolio of 70 rightsholders include Wimbledon, the PGA Tour, EuroLeague Basketball and Major League Soccer (MLS) – all of which would be added to Sportradar’s portfolio once the acquisition concludes.
The CMA is now investigating whether a monopoly on sports data would be created via the merger to the detriment of competitiveness and innovation for UK business. CMA judges will assess whether a deal tilts the market more in Sportradar’s favour against its rivals and new challengers (innovation) for data services needed for media, IP rights, sports marketing, sports betting and associated technologies.
This is a space Sportradar shares not just with the aforementioned Genius Sports but also with Stats Perform, Statscore, Statsbomb and relative newcomer ALT Sports Data, to name a few.
The CMA’s investigation is currently in the ‘invitation to comment’ phase. Interested parties are able to submit viewpoints on whether the takeover could have an impact on UK competition during this stage.
However, the regulator has also stressed that it has “not yet launched its formal investigation into this transaction,” and that the invitation to comment is just the first part of its information-gathering process.
This is not the first time a CMA investigation has touched on a merger with a lot of relevance to the UK betting market. The regulator has been investigating SpreadEx’s takeover of Sporting Index, a deal from 2023, for some time, and revealed last month that it came across some ‘competition concerns’.
Update – when contacted by SBC Media, a Sportradar spokesperson said: “This is a normal part of the CMA merger control process.”
