Michael Jordan, Mark Cuban and Ted Leonsis are betting on sports-data gambling venture

jensinc · Oct 27, 2015

Michael Jordan, Mark Cuban and Ted Leonsis are betting on sports-data gambling venture

Along with fellow NBA owners Mark Cuban and Ted Leonsis, Michael Jordan is investing in a sports-data company geared toward gambling. | Getty Images

Turn on the TV for 10 minutes and you’re likely to see a commercial promoting DraftKings or FanDuel, two fantasy sports companies aimed at risk-takers. Their sudden growth has led to the realization that legalized sports gambling is coming to the entire United States, not just the four states where it’s legal.

Three pretty famous NBA owners—Michael Jordan, Mark Cuban and Ted Leonsis—are betting this fantasy thing is more than just a fad.

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Bloomberg Business
✔@business

Michael Jordan, Mark Cuban, and Ted Leonsis are putting millions on sports betting's future http://bloom.bg/1MQsxNK

From Bloomberg Business:

The trio of NBA team owners, along with Revolution Growth partner Evan Morgan, will join the U.S. advisory board of Sportradar, which bases its U.S. operations in Minneapolis. The company has exclusive partnerships to distribute the data of the National Football League, National Hockey League, and Nascar. Follow a football game down by down on your iPad, for example, and you’re probably looking at a Sportradar data feed; look up a player’s stats online, and that’s likely to be Sportradar data too.

The NBA with president Adam Silver has been one of the leagues embracing the emergence of digital gambling.

“I feel we’re going to be taken there eventually no matter what anybody’s policy is,” Silver told a group of sports editors in April. “The fans really are controlling this sport and most sports. It’s a marketplace, and what the marketplace is telling us it that fans want to engage in wagering. Despite government restrictions against it, they will continue to wager. Because of accessibility through the internet, it has become that much easier. If they’re going to do it, we might as well join with them.”

Betallsports · Oct 27, 2015

Yeah looked them up a few months ago when this article was posted back in Aug. http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=1027216

Bookmarked it

HacheMan · Oct 27, 2015

What info are they going to be able to offer to give bettors an advantage that already isn't present???

Maybe inside info from some of the NBA's corrupt officials?!?

Betallsports · Oct 27, 2015

Hache Man said:
What info are they going to be able to offer to give bettors an advantage that already isn't present???

Maybe inside info from some of the NBA's corrupt officials?!?

They control the Data from the NHL & NFL ... all outlets get Stats from Sportstrader

HacheMan · Oct 27, 2015

Betallsports said:
They control the Data from the NHL & NFL ... all outlets get Stats from Sportstrader

So basically,info that's been available for free all this time, will come at a price if sports betting is legalized??

What's to stop hundreds, or thousands of 3rd parties, from tracking the data, unofficially of course, and merely slapping the "Not official stats of the (fill in league)" ?

Betallsports · Oct 27, 2015

Hache Man said:
So basically,info that's been available for free all this time, will come at a price if sports betting is legalized??

What's to stop hundreds, or thousands of 3rd parties, from tracking the data, unofficially of course, and merely slapping the "Not official stats of the (fill in league)" ?

Guess you can't stop it. But I believe they are not charging Us ( the gamblers ) for the service. Sites like ESPN, CBS Sportsline, etc is charged in some way. or are the Leagues being charged ???

HacheMan · Oct 27, 2015

Betallsports said:
Guess you can't stop it. But I believe they are not charging Us ( the gamblers ) for the service. Sites like ESPN, CBS Sportsline, etc is charged in some way. or are the Leagues being charged ???

Right, as of right now we're not being charged.

But I believe that is their plan in the future if sports betting is legalized.

I know I've read somewhere else, maybe regarding this same group or others, talking about the future & leagues making money off of the stats that bettors want...

Soriano12 · Oct 27, 2015

Hache Man said:
Right, as of right now we're not being charged.

But I believe that is their plan in the future if sports betting is legalized.

Right now they are charging the other side of the counter via their betradar product, providing lots of data to compile odds, but also data analysis & reporting tools and such, to take advantage of that data and also to monitor markets for suspicious betting volumes/patterns to discover possibly manipulated games.
Imo betradar is currently one of the major tools sites like betfair but also the major European soccer leagues use to monitor betting activity and detect possibly fixed matches.

Vlad the Impaler · Oct 28, 2015

You know it will be successful. Whatever Mark Cuban touches turns to gold. That Broadcast.com site never even had real sales and was completely nothing within a year after Yahoo bought it for 5.7 billion. That thing wasn't worth 100K. Just because a stock price says it is worth billions doesn't mean it is in real money.

CHOPTALK · Oct 28, 2015

Vlad the Impaler said:
You know it will be successful. Whatever Mark Cuban touches turns to gold. That Broadcast.com site never even had real sales and was completely nothing within a year after Yahoo bought it for 5.7 billion. That thing wasn't worth 100K. Just because a stock price says it is worth billions doesn't mean it is in real money.

Actually Mark Cuban has had a lot of whiffs.

But you only need 1 home run every 10 at bats when you hit so big on the the successful ones and minimize the misses.

Hes actually had more misses then hits but that's pretty normal.

Hes basically turned into some sort of independent venture capitalist.

He seems to be very good at not falling in love with his losers and maximizing his winners .

Thats a very good quality to have .

Some people get married to an idea and go down with the ship when things go south.

Vlad the Impaler · Oct 28, 2015

CHOPTALK said:
Actually Mark Cuban has had a lot of whiffs.

But you only need 1 home run every 10 at bats when you hit so big on the the successful ones and minimize the misses.

Hes actually had more misses then hits but that's pretty normal.

Hes basically turned into some sort of independent venture capitalist.

He seems to be very good at not falling in love with his losers and maximizing his winners .

Thats a very good quality to have .

Some people get married to an idea and go down with the ship when things go south.

I'm sure he has whiffs but which ones are they? I don't really count shark tank investments as whiffs. When you have 3 billion dollars and it is mostly straight cash, giving someone 100K on a flyer isn't much. I know successes. Bar in college that was the most successful on campus til it was shut down, Microsolutions he sold at 30 and walked away with 2 million even though he was ripped off by an employee, Broadcast.com, Mavericks, Magnolia theatres, HD.net, Landmark theatres. When he first became a billionare, he was worth 2.3 billion and now has grown that to around 3 billion. That guy is in his late 50's and looks like he is 40.