Genius Sports Group sued Sportradar in the U.K. High Court last week, arguing that the Swiss-based company has unlawfully dispatched “data scouts” — spectators who relay data for purposes of facilitating in-game betting — to Premier League, English Football League and Scottish Professional Football League stadiums. Genius Sports is the exclusive collector and distributor of official data from those leagues’ matches.

From Sportico:

Headquartered in London, Sportradar rejects the premise of Genius Sports’s lawsuit, insisting that the exclusive relationship negotiated by Genius Sports violates European Union and British competition (antitrust) laws.

“Sportradar’s position,” the company said in a statement to Sportico, “has always been that private law rights cannot be relied upon to give effect to an anti-competitive arrangement.”
Data scouts, one industry source told Sportico, often “wear headsets and hoodies” at matches and try not to be noticed. They engage in a so-called “cat-and-mouse” game, hoping to avoid detection from grounds security while transmitting data. For the soccer matches, Genius Sports employs “watchers” to spot and demand infringing individuals be removed from stadiums. Sportradar says its scouts carry paper that identifies them, are instructed to comply if approached during the game, and have never actively tried to avoid detection. A group of individuals portrayed as data scouts are named in the lawsuit. Data scouts violate their match tickets and morph from spectator into trespasser, an issue Sportradar disputes in a separate lawsuit.
The latest lawsuit is separate but connected to ongoing U.K. litigation between the two companies. Last year, Sportradar sued Genius Sports and Football DataCo (FDC) — an intellectual property licensing company owned by the Premier League, English Football League and Scottish Professional Football League — claiming the two are in violation of competition laws.

Read more here: https://www.sportico.com/law/analysi...it-1234622177/