Sportradar Group AG (SRAD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, thanks, everyone. Next up, we have Sportradar and I'm joined by CFO, Craig Felenstein. This is your first time at the conference, as CFO of Sportradar.

So I'd just love for you to talk to us a little bit about what attracted you to the business. And then what perhaps has surprised you, good, bad, whatever else you've uncovered that you'd want to share?

Sure. First of all, thank you for having me. Appreciate it. It's my first time here. Listen, I think the first thing that attracted me to Sportradar was where we sit, which is at the intersection of 3 pretty unique industries that I'm passionate about. And that would be sports, that would be media and that would be gaming. And when you ever you can go work at a company that kind of you enjoy being around the product every single day, that's certainly the first thing to be attracted to. The second thing for me about Sportradar is, it plays in an industry where it has an incredibly strong tailwind behind it and it sits at that intersection with some pretty amazing content. And a long time ago, when I was in my earlier media days, someone taught me that content is what matters and whoever has the best content wins. And when you think about Sportradar, we have some of the best content, some of the most incredible products and some of the deepest relationships across the globe. So when you put all those things together, it's a pretty unique and telling story. And then I got to talk to some of the people at Sportradar and I got to see what it is that we do every single day and how passionate they are about what we do, not just what we do today and what we've done for many, many years but what the opportunity is in front of us. So the opportunity to grow that story, create additional value for many, many years and continue kind of the growth that we've delivered here for many years. So the runway ahead was very, very long. And when I started to talk not just to people inside the company but outside the company, you start talking to the leagues or the sportsbooks about how valuable Sportradar is to them. And they echo not only is it incredibly valuable for them today but it's very valuable for them in terms of where they want to go in terms of building fan engagement, in terms of creating additional revenues. So when your customers are telling you that's a good thing, when people internally are telling you it's a good thing, it's a very easy story to get excited about. And then I would say the last thing for me, which really was exciting for me to show up was, Carsten Koerl, our founder. Carsten founded this company back in 2001 and he knows this space better than anybody and he has visions for what this can be. It's pretty infectious. And the passion that he has, you can't replicate, I would say, from a founder perspective. So all of that was really why I went there. And I would say that all of those things have kind of been reinforced now being there, right? When you walk around the halls of a company or you travel across to the various offices we have across the globe, people are very focused on where are we going next? What additional value can we bring to the ecosystem and it's truly, truly exciting. And I had spent a lot of time with our partners on both the league side as well as the sportsbook side and they share the enthusiasm that we're just starting to tap into what this ecosystem can be and the future of growth ahead of us. So all that is very positive.

That's great. Perhaps give us the elevator pitch in terms of the financial model as we think longer term. How do we -- how should investors think about the potential growth top line, margins and in particular, same margins, I'm usually thinking about free cash flow margins. But how do we think about the different building blocks and what this looks like?

Sure. As I said, when I first started, Sportradar sits in an industry that has a whole lot of tailwind behind it. And when you think about the sports gaming world and you look at it from a growth, just from a market perspective, the international market is growing somewhere in the high single to low double digits. The domestic market is growing in that 25% to 30% range. So you have really a global growth of somewhere in that low double-digit range for the foreseeable future, that's the starting point. And when you think about what we can do on top of that, we add additional value to the ecosystem through product generation, service innovation. And when you deliver those to your customers, you grow faster than the market. And that's what's happening today. You look at the revenue growth that we're going to deliver today somewhere in the mid-20% range. And you think about what we've done over the last several years, it far exceeds what the market can grow and that's because of the additional value that we're adding to the ecosystem. Now you get additional states opening, you get additional countries opening, you get the rise of in-game within the marketplace, which drives additional value. So the revenue is going to grow very, very nicely here over the next foreseeable future. Then you translate that into what I would say, what matters most, which is profitability. From an EBITDA perspective, the cost base of the company is relatively stable. We've locked down our major sports contracts here for an average of 6 years with the exception of Major League Baseball, which we're in the process of negotiating today. So we know what that cost looks like. We're able to very much control our personnel costs, our back-office functionality as well. So the margins that we're delivering today, which are around 20% EBITDA margins, we've said we'll get into the 25% to 30% range in the foreseeable future. So we're going to have really nice flow-through on that revenue to EBITDA in the future and we're translating that today into greater and greater amounts of free cash flow. The company 1 year ago was only generating about 30% free cash flow conversion. Today, in this year, we're going to generate over 50% cash conversion. And we only have -- we have no debt. We have about $368 million of cash on our balance sheet. So a whole lot of opportunity to generate free cash flow and have a strong liquidity position.

So I guess with that, that's a good jumping off point to just go into a couple of the investor debates that we typically get. And the first one is really this idea that are you sitting between 2 very consolidated or very large subsets? One is the leagues with primarily really the NFL, the NBA. And then on the other end, at least in the U.S. and maybe to a degree in different markets globally, FanDuel and DraftKings, so you're trying to negotiate between -- some people would say, a rock and a hard place, so can you really get margin expansion. So what gives you confidence in terms of thinking about what long-term margins should look like over time? And how do you think about both -- you talked about this a little bit, rights inflation longer term but then also pricing power with the operators?

Sure. So let's talk about the major cost buckets and how they kind of roll out here for the next several years. So we have a relationship with the NBA. That relationship is secured through 2031. We have a relationship with the NHL. That contract runs through 2030. We have a relationship with ATP, that contract runs through 2029. So all of our major contracts are locked in for the foreseeable future, with the exception of Major League Baseball, like I said, which we're negotiating today but we feel very good about our relationship with Major League Baseball. And those conversations with the sports leagues have all gone the same way, which is, help us to continue to drive value for the league. That is in terms of fan engagement, helping us to connect more with our fans globally, not just here in the U.S. but also ways to drive additional revenue streams for us by how you interact with both the gambling community but also the media and technology side of the house. So the -- all of our major sports rights are locked down for, on average, about 6 years. So we feel really good about that cost bucket. The personnel side of the house, which is our next biggest cost bucket, will grow much slower than our revenue growth. That is something that the company started down a path on before I got here but it is a mandate, me walking in the door, was to make sure that we're getting margin expansion on the personnel side of the house as well as the other cost buckets. This year alone, I believe we're going to generate about 300 basis points of leverage on our personnel costs from a revenue perspective. So all of the costs from a margin perspective are, I would say, pretty secure. From a sportsbook perspective, how do we continue to drive more growth? It's about continuing to drive innovative products and services. When we sit here, we have relationships with FanDuel and DraftKings, those relationships are locked in through 2031. And when we talk to them about how to grow those relationships, it's not about changing the cost base. It's about how do you generate additional revenue opportunities and ways for us to engage with our core audiences. So we feel really strong about the relationships with the sportsbooks and we sit in that space where we feel good about the sportsbooks and we feel good about the leagues that we know where our margins are going to head over the next few years.

And something we were touching on before we got on stage that I think was important. But maybe talking about, is that more of a push thing where you had to come up with the ideas and then sell it to them? Or is it more of a feedback loop from the operators and the leagues giving you, hey, we've got this issue or we need to [indiscernible] figure XYZ out and then you create that for them.

Yes. These are not deals that you sign and then you put them in a draw and they just operate for the next 7 years, right? So our relationships with the leagues and with the sportsbooks is very much a give and take every single day, right? What are the pain points in your business today? What are the opportunities in your business today? How can we help solve that? At the same time, as we're asking them directly what they need, we're coming up with new and innovative ideas ourselves for ways to do things. So whether that is something like a foresight where you layer in data and statistics on top of a video stream, those sorts of products allow them to engage with their fans in better ways and create more activity and create better return for them as a league. So I would say it's very much a push and a pull kind of relationship.

So you tackled the cost buckets on the P&L but then there was also the free cash flow conversion has been a question. You touched on this a little bit, 30%, going to 50%. I know that you have a Investor Day coming up. But are there; a, is there anything you can share in terms of like a typical contract economics that would influence how cash flow will ebb and flow, just so people are kind of aware of how the model works and what that might mean?

Sure. One of the things that I should point out is that the way the expenses for sports rights roll through our P&L is straight line. So once we have a sports contract locked down for, call it, 7 years, the expense for that contract is the same every single year. So that's one way you're certainly going to get margin expansion. From a cash perspective, that does grow over time, okay? So for us, the key is to continue to generate revenue as that cash grows so we can continue to generate a high cash flow return. The way we continue to generate more free cash flow aside from, I would say, is delivering better products and better innovation is a lot of blocking and tackling, right? We don't need to pay customers in advance if we have effectively 30, 60, 90 days to do so. On the flip side, we want to get our customers to pay us as fast as we can. These are things that the company traditionally haven't had to focus on because it was growing so fast. But now we tend to focus on some of the, I would say, blocking and tackling around free cash flow. And you're seeing the fruits of that labor today with over 50% cash conversion this year and that should continue to grow here in the next few years.

The other debate that I would say comes up pretty regularly is around in-game or live betting, where in international markets, it seems like it's been much higher. In the U.S., it hasn't really taken off. So I guess, one -- any thoughts on how that might trend longer term and what that also means from your own economic model?

Sure. When you look at the international in-play market, the international market tends to be somewhere in that -- 70% to 80% of their gaming is in-play. In the U.S., that's only about 30% to 40%. Now to be clear, it is growing somewhat fast. If you look back several years ago, it was only in that 20% to 25% range, right? So it is growing as part of the ecosystem overall. It's just taking some time. And I think a large portion of that has to do with where we sit in the U.S. from an overall market development. The market is still relatively young, only about 5 years old. So out of the gate, the market did, what a lot of the international markets did, is it focused on pregame odds, pregame action, over-under, things of that nature. And then it kind of transitioned a little bit to the parlay business, which has been so successful. And now what you're starting to see is a lot of focus on the in-game. And the in-game what I would say is focused, is not only good from the sportsbook perspective but we're also helping to foster that with some of the new products and services that we're putting out there, the micro betting opportunities that we provide now when you have 100,000 data points that you're collecting from an ATP match that you can provide instantaneous action to the sportsbook so they can then pass that along to their consumers, will foster more of that in-game activity. From a financial perspective, every percentage point or so of growth in the in-game in the U.S. is another $1.6 million, $1.7 million for us that flows straight to the bottom line. So we are doing our best to come up with new products and services to support that. And I think you're also seeing that from a sportsbook perspective as they invest their dollars in whether it be new companies or new product offerings with regards to in-game. So I think we're all aligned.

Yes, we absolutely hear that. I mean we've heard that at this conference and just more broadly from the operators where everyone saying, well, wait a minute, there's going be a commoditized product, they want everything to be the same and no, everyone is trying to go with the next thing and the next differentiation. And so certainly, live and in-game seems like that's that next evolution.

Yes. And live and in-game in many ways, can almost be viewed that as entertainment. When you're watching a game, why not add a little something to change how you are viewing the overall action of that game. So I see that with my son. He's probably not too happy that I'm talking about it on stage but he intends to enjoy some of the in-game activity. And I think we're seeing a lot of that across the ecosystem as a whole.

So another area of, I think, debate is really around competition really in the space. There was this window of time where there was one relatively new public company. I guess all -- most of the people in the space were new but not directly related to this space that was saying, "Oh, we can answer this, it's pretty easy." Has the competitive environment changed over the past few years? Or how do you think about who your primary competitors are and how either the RFP process or just how much visibility you have around contracts has changed over time?

Yes. I think there's 2 sides to that question. There's the side of the leagues and there's the side with the sportsbooks. So let's start with the leagues. So as we mentioned earlier, we're now at the point where the competition for sports -- the major sports contracts in the U.S. are pretty much locked up. We have the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball, hopefully soon, ATP, whereas, one of our larger competitors has the NFL. And all those contracts are set up for the long term. So there really is not going to be a big change in the ecosystem in terms of sports rights. That said, there are a lot of rights globally that we all look at together. There aren't that many players for those rights globally. But when we look at rights, the fact that there's another player or not another player really doesn't change the way we look at analyzing those rights. For us, we know as a company, we have a margin opportunity in front of us. We want to continue to drive towards that margin over the long term and we're not going to take on sports rights that are going to change that margin potential. So when we look at sports rights, whether it's domestically or internationally, that's the lens that we use to look through. And I think that will continue to be the case. The other thing I should mention about the leagues here in the U.S. is that all of the NBA and the NHL currently have equity positions in Sportradar. So it's in their best interest for us to continue to grow as a company and for them to help us to continue to grow both on the product side but also on the overall company value side. So it works well for both sides. With regards to the sportsbooks contracts, as I mentioned earlier, most of our sportsbook contracts here in the U.S. are long term. So those are pretty locked in. And the way we kind of get additional value out of those is providing additional products and services as we come up with more micro markets or more audiovisual services or more ways to do fan engagement through visualizations, all of those add value to the sportsbooks and allows us to take, what I would say, a greater share of wallet moving forward.

I guess one other follow-up before I get into the segments on that point. Do you think that the -- so the contracts are different in the U.S. relative to Europe. Does that converge over time? Or are there any other changes that you could foresee as new contracts are coming up that might change the way that you structure these going forward?

Yes. So about 70% of our revenues are on fixed contracts and about 30% are variable with the majority of the variable contracts here in the United States and the majority of the fixed contracts internationally. I don't see a whole lot of change coming forth on those types of contracts. As our international contracts come up that are fixed, we do, from time to time, try to push them to be more variable so we can grow more as the market grows. But what's important about all these contracts is they get bigger and bigger as you provide more and more product and more and more services. So for us, as we look at our international contracts that are fixed, when you provide something like a foresight or you provide something like more micro markets where you provide something like more fan engagement tools, you could then charge more to the consumer even though the contracts are fixed. So I don't see a change so much in the ecosystem but I do see that we'll be able to capture more share as we develop more products.

So let's -- I guess let's focus on the betting segment. It sounds like there's a combination of maximizing revenue perhaps within existing [ console ] operators. There's also new markets. So there's a bunch of different things that are driving those. Is there any way to help think about either what new markets are on the horizon or how to think about growth that's, call it, organic versus new should be layered on top of that for that segment?

Yes. So we talked a little bit about the growth that we're seeing from a market perspective being somewhere in the low double digit. At the same time, there are a number of markets which are, I would say, on the verge of opening. The biggest and the most notable right now being Brazil. So the Brazil market is expected to open in earnest next year. The expectation is that market, which today is somewhere around a $2 billion market will grow somewhere into the $5 billion or $6 billion over a multiyear period. So from our perspective, as I said, it's the biggest area of growth. But there are opportunities for other markets to open in the future, whether it be in Japan or in India. And as those happen, because the cost structure that we have is relatively flat, the margin opportunity by those things opening is pretty significant because the costs are relatively fixed. So the return, as new markets open, is very, very positive. Here in the U.S., I mean, it's no surprise people would love to see California and Texas and those sort of states open. We don't sit back and wait for that to happen but that would certainly bear some of that same fruit where you'd see more growth. As you wait for those markets to open, you're not going to sit around and just say, all right, we're good where we are. You start to develop new opportunities. And I think some of the things we talked about earlier, especially with in-game wagering, will not only increase the overall revenue pie but because we get a higher percentage take of that sort of wager, it helps us from a revenue perspective just by its overall nature. So we see a lot of revenue opportunity in the betting space because of market expansion, because of continued growth of our product portfolio and because of that in-game expansion.

I guess another follow-up on that is really, we get questions from an operator standpoint around win rates. There's obviously been some volatility around events. But in general, I think there's this perception that, that's a business that people don't really have a great feel for how odds are set and maybe where you fit in. So if you maybe you could talk a little bit about how you help manage that risk, what -- how odds are set and what drives advantages within that part of the space?

Sure. This is what we do, right? So for years, we've been able to capture data, ultimately provide that data to sportsbooks if they just want the data but if they would like us to provide their odds, to tailor the odds to those individual sportsbooks. And the success rate has been very, very high. Obviously, over time, you can't factor in some individual anomalies. But the return that we've been able to generate for our sportsbooks speaks to the fact that they have been asking for odds for many, many years. We're always looking for ways to continue to grow that, however. So we have a business that we -- it's predominantly international, called MTS, Managed Trading Services, which allows us to manage our sportsbooks' pretty much entire portfolio from a risk management perspective, from a customer acquisition perspective, from an analytics perspective, from an odds, from a data perspective. And within that ecosystem, we are now developing a new product called Alpha Odds. What Alpha Odds does is it doesn't just show kind of what the odds are across the entire marketplace but what the odds would be appropriate for your bespoke sportsbook. And what we've shown with our ability to do on that front is we can generate a return that's 10% greater than odds that are not part of the Alpha Odds equation. So we're looking for ways to use that data in more, I would say, specific and individualistic nature, which allows us to be a high return.

And it sounds like part of that is just the scale, right, that you have not just one single subset but you get to look across all different subsets, aggregate that data and set odds appropriately. I guess what -- what's the pushback to that product then? Why isn't everybody saying, okay, yes, I'm going to go ahead and sign up. I want 10% more.

Well, it's relatively new, first of all, right? So the proof is in the pudding. And the more that you can prove that, time and time again, the more customers you're going to get. We're also seeing MTS as an overall product for us to grow. We're up to about 400 individual sportsbooks under MTS. And as that product continues to grow, we'll see more and more take-up of the Alpha Odds side of the house. So I think part of that is performance, show me that you can continue to do this and it's not just a one-off. And once you do that and people learn that you can do that, you'll get more and more customers following suit.

And for those less familiar in the room, maybe like give us a sense for just the volume of bets that you process odds for.

So our MTS business does about $35 billion over the last 12 months of gaming revenue. And then from just an odds production perspective, I think we're the third largest odds provider in the world when it comes to odds production. And if we were an individual sports book, we would be the third largest individual sportsbook of odds production in the world. So it's a significant amount of odds.

And is this something that some -- the other kind of that we went through this -- a little bit of the debate about consolidation within the operators. Is this something that they can try to bring in-house? Are there different products that there's a life cycle where you ramp it up and then they try to replicate it in-house? Or how do you prevent that from happening?

Sure. So when you look at what a sportsbook ultimately wants, they want coverage. They want to make sure that they have events going on all the time, that they have action all the time and that they have a diversity of product that ultimately appeals to a wide subset of their consumers. When you think about what an individual sportsbook can do onto themselves, it's hard to cover the magnitude of sports that we have. We cover over 1 million matches every single year. We have relationships with hundreds and hundreds of sports leagues globally. So it allows us to create more product than anybody else. It would be very hard for a individual sportsbook to do that on their own. Many times, as we collect this data, we provide data to the sportsbooks. So not only are they taking the data that we provide to them because we can capture it and send it to them but they're also taking the odds to even the larger sportsbooks to make sure that the odds are in line with what the market ultimately is expecting. So there's a lot of product from that perspective. And then there's also the reality of the technological side of this. When you are collecting data from that many sports leagues and that many matches, being able to take that data and actually transmit it to a sportsbook in real time, live, especially as in-game becomes a bigger part of this, that reduced latency is a massive, massive challenge for people who don't know how to do this. So from our perspective, the ability to collect the data, the ability to analyze the data, the ability to provide that data in real time and the ability to do that in a way that's effectual from a return perspective is really hard to mirror.

At scale, yes. Another key, I think, differentiator has been your relationship with the NBA. You had a couple of announcements there. Maybe you could talk about what those announcements mean for the business? What are some of the new products that could come out of it?

Sure. So our new overall relationship with the NBA started 1 year ago, so in the fourth quarter 1 year ago. So we've now lapped that for a full year. That relationship runs through 2031. And as I mentioned, the sportsbooks, what they're looking for is, they want to have more stickiness and they want to have more products and they want to have more engagement with their customers. And one of the things that they've allowed us to do as part of this new relationship is to capture more and more data points. So we're capturing hundreds of thousands of data points in every single game. And we're using those data points now to provide additional products. One of those products is our 4Sight product, which allows us to put data over a video stream of the NBA, to say, here's what's happening in this game at this moment and hopefully foster you to action as an individual gambling unit. And then there's other opportunities to take that data and do greater visualization. So providing visualizations for the sportsbook to share with their consumers and ultimately get them to foster more activity. And then it's certainly, this micro market side of the house, where we're providing more and more data points now where they can come up for ways for individual consumers to bet on individual parts of that game during the game. And it's early days on a lot of these things because the season just started but all signs point to some significant fan engagement, which is what we're trying to get at here more than anything else.

So let's pivot to the content side of the business. Maybe before we get into specific questions, just for -- again, this is a broader consumer conference. So maybe define how you think about that business, how it's different than the core kind of betting business? What is comprising it?

Sure. So we really have 2 segments of the company. We have the betting side of the house, which you mentioned, which is about 80% of the business. And then another 20% of our business is what I would call ads, media, integrity and performance. And in that side of the business, we do a number of things for sportsbooks. First, customer acquisition. So we have so much data and so much information from our MTS business that we have the ability to find ways to attract new consumers for the sportsbooks through advertising. And that is a business for us that's growing really, really nicely right now. We actually just added to that capability with the acquisition of an affiliate business called XLMedia, which again will allow us, given all the information and all the data that we have, to provide not only consumers to the sportsbooks but consumers that are active and actually engage with their product. What we've been able to show from our discussions with these sportsbooks is that we allow them to attract customers at a 40% cheaper alternative than they would elsewhere. So we're getting much higher return because of the data and the information that we have. So that's part of that sector. And that ebbs and flows as the sportsbooks go ahead and increase campaigns or decrease campaigns. The other side of that business, which is the content side of the business, is we have a very robust media business. So we have a business that provides data and statistics to 900 or so media and technology companies, both in terms of traditional broadcast measures but also online and outlets like that. So that business does continue to grow, albeit it's growing a little bit slower than our gambling business because of the nature of where we are in its evolution. But there's a unique opportunity as the need for data across and information across all of these outlets continues to grow. They'll be looking for information like ours to foster again, fan engagement and client engagement.

So is this segment, I guess, just a clarification, is this more relevant to the U.S. segment as kind of add-ons to the operators or from a sports standpoint? Or is it global and it's something that actually helps with the leads as well.

That's very much global. Both the ad business is very global. There's a need to acquire customers, not just here in the U.S. but certainly globally. And then when you look at the media and technology businesses, there are so many outlets globally that are looking for this kind of data and this kind of content to drive interaction and engagement and we can provide that to them.

And I guess on that side of the business, are the unit economics just as compelling? Like should that -- should the margin structure look similar over time, especially, I guess, as we think about the ad business or the affiliate business, is that -- should we be thinking about that different than the -- what I would say is like kind of the core betting business?

It is a different business. It certainly has different margin because unlike the core betting business, where most of our costs are locked, so any additional incremental revenue comes at a very, very high margin for this business. As you're buying additional traffic, your advertising does ratchet up but your margins stay, I would say, very similar. So that said, when you look at the overall margin, I would say, goal of the company to get into that 25% to 30% range, we certainly expect to do that from growth from not just the betting and gaming content but also the content sector itself as well.

Great. Maybe moving down into the expense line. In some ways, you inherited an organization that was already undergoing a big change. I guess where are we in terms of whether it's efficiency optimization or, I guess, another way to frame it is, just a culture around expenses? Is that -- are we in the middle of it? Is there more to go? Or are we at the tail and we're going to reap some of those benefits?

Yes, sure. As we sit here and we talk about the fact that we're going to have significant margin expansion over the next several years, I'd like to take all the credit for that. However, I would say this is something that Carsten and the team had started down that path, as you mentioned 1 year ago, which is, let's make sure we level set the cost structure of the company for the opportunity that we have in front of it. And there's a lot of rigor going on around the company today with regards to what I would call ROI from a product perspective. So when you think about a company like ours, there's so many new opportunities to look at product innovation and service innovation. So if you're going to invest time, money and energy into those things, you want to be sure that they're going to have a return. So one of the focal points of the company right now is, don't be afraid to take risks, don't be afraid to try new products. But if it's not working, let's call a spade to spade and move on. And I think there's a new rigor around that today at the company, certainly. The second thing I would say is on the personnel side, historically, when the company was growing as fast as it was growing on the top line for as long as it was growing on the top line, there's a tendency to kind of get a little bit, what I would say, inflated from a personnel perspective. And there's an opportunity moving forward, not to go in and say we're going to take out a fleet or a wide swath of costs across the company from where we are today, although I do think there are opportunities to take out some costs. But it's more to control the costs in relation to what the revenue growth of the company is going to be. So when you look at personnel costs, it should pale in comparison to what the revenue opportunity is. When you look at operating expenses, like technology costs and like scouting costs and like marketing costs, they should all grow way slower than the revenue growth that we have in front of us.

And were there any changes in incentive structures then in terms of what people are being measured on as well, that goes all the way down to expenses?

So from a manager perspective, one of the big pieces of, what I would say, change has been, there's an incentive around free cash flow now, whereas previously, it was more focused on revenue and EBITDA. The cash flow mantra of the company to grow cash flow across the board is not just at the highest levels. Everybody understands that when we evaluate how we're doing, it's not just about the EBITDA side of the house but it is about are we delivering higher free cash flow conversion and higher levels of cash flow growth.

That's great. Another area is just thinking about, future rights that could be coming up. Are there any major sports that are on the horizon? You talked a little bit about the MLB but are there other things that we should be looking out for in the next 1 year or 2? Or that could be expiring. It sounds like most of yours are already out there but are there others that are expiring?

Yes. So there's nothing of scale that's expiring that I would say would move the needle all that dramatically for us or anybody else at this point. That's not to say that there's not stuff that's constantly coming up across the globe. I speak to our management team every other week about rights opportunities that are out there. And we look at them very holistically and say, will these rights ultimately provide us the ability to continue to drive margins? Will it provide value to some customers somewhere that they're looking for, some volleyball rights in some local market or some tennis rights in some local market. And that's how we kind of evaluate it. So there's nothing on the individual side that I think would change the margin profile specifically. And when it comes to the Major League Baseball, there's not much I can really say because probably, obviously, because we're in the middle of a negotiation right now. But what I will say is Major League Baseball understands our need to continue to grow as a company. They understand the opportunity that we bring to them to drive revenues for the game in the future and drive awareness for the game in the future. And as we sit here looking at 2025, I would fully expect Major League Baseball to be part of our portfolio as we continue to expand margins across the company.

That's great. Now we've got about 5 minutes left. So if people have questions in the audience, we'll get a mic out to you if there's anybody who's feeling particularly confident. Otherwise, I can keep going up here, don't be bashful. Maybe while we wait, what are your teams?

Unfortunately, I am a New York Giant's season ticket holder.

[indiscernible] on the same camp.

Yes, that's been a little challenging. I am a Ranger fan. I'm a hockey guy at heart. It's been my sport for many, many years. They were doing okay until recently. So -- and then I'm a Yankees and a Nicks fan as well. So...

All that work.

What I've come to learn with Sportradar is, your allegiances do change sometimes depending on where all the allegiances [indiscernible] so for the most part, try to hold yourself [indiscernible]

Fair enough. We do have a question. I have one other one but...

Apologies, if this is a Level 1 question but newer to understanding the story. You talked about how you guys have all the sports league kind of rights sewn up and then the incremental margin that kind of happens if you guys build new products over it. I guess, I'm interested in understanding, is there a variable component to how you guys -- like, is it just a fixed cost to the league, every single league every single year? Or like if you guys build new products on top of it, does that end up what sort of rev share goes back to them, as you guys get new products on that [indiscernible]

Right, product equation, effectively.

Yes. So for the most part, our lead deals are fixed license fee deals. So we -- there's a certain fixed license fee that we pay every year. It does escalate a little bit each year over the course of the term. But it doesn't change as we introduce new products and new functionality for our sportsbooks partners. They want us to do that. They want us to help grow their games. They want us to help engagement with their fans. So the contracts are what the contracts are. Now if we come up with new products and services, there's a lot of conversation with them about how to grow the overall relationship over time. So we do have those kind of conversations but the rights fees are fixed for a multiyear period.

And then on live and in-game betting, I guess, the question is, how do you guys evaluate what the right win rates are? Like how do you guys evaluate setting the right lines? Because I guess, like fixed pregame lines, I feel like there's decades or centuries of like back testing to be able to be done, whereas I feel like when I see in-game lines, a lot of times like an NBA game, it's, the guy is winning by 6 points. And so it's like, okay, plus or minus 1 point or 2 points. As the live line and all these -- NBA is a game of runs and like it -- I just -- how do you make sure that you're setting the right lines that get to the win rates that get to the right return profiles first.

Sure. So, obviously, we know what the win rate that the sportsbook is trying to achieve. We know what win rate is acceptable. And we have 20-plus years of data that allows us to do that rather quickly. Setting new lines fast is not something that's new to us. The level of detail is new to us and our ability to do that but we've had technological developments that have allowed that to happen pretty quickly. So the issue for us is not -- making sure we're setting the right lines because we feel very comfortable about that. It's -- can we get that data to the sportsbook fast enough where they can make that adjustment on their side of the house, so there's no exposure to them from a latency perspective. And that's one of the huge advantages that we have as a company as we've been able to eliminate that latency for our sportsbook partners by transmitting the data and the odds real time, not just as we record it where we are but the actual technological connection that we have with them allows it to get to them real time, so there's no exposure on their end. So the win rates that we see on live is exactly what we expect it to be given the years of history that we've seen.

Maybe on a -- I guess we've got one more question over here.

Got encouraged by the Level 1 question, so I'll go with one more. I didn't quite understand the answer around you have effectively 2 very large customers in DraftKings and FanDuel. So how do you kind of have pricing power vis-a-vis these guys? And how does your revenue stream with them work? Is it largely fixed also? Or is it on a per bet basis? Or how does that work?

Sure. So our revenue streams here in the U.S., our relationships here in the U.S. are revenue share agreements. So they're not fixed fee. So what happens is, as they grow their pie and they grow their portfolio, we get a greater, we get that same revenue share of a growing pie. So the overall pricing power is not with them specifically. The pricing that we have agreed with them for the next, however, number of years is set with the one exception of as we develop additional products, that amount of revenue share that we get from their gaming revenue can go up given that we're driving more value. So the relationship with most people here in the U.S., not just FanDuel and DraftKings is a revenue share, what I would say, business model. Internationally, it's the exact opposite. It tends to be more of a fixed share model internationally.

Maybe I'll leave it with capital allocation. So you've got long duration contracts, some fixed cost structure margins going up, free cash flow inflection, no real leverage. So how do you think about your priorities in terms of what you do with that free cash flow?

Sure. We call those high-class problems, of course, yes. What I would say is from our perspective, the priorities haven't really changed. The priority is, we want to continue to invest in products and services that drive value for our customers, that will allow us to not only grow at market rates here, which we know is going to happen but far exceed those for many, many years. So the first priority remains investing in, I would say, products and services and opportunities on the organic side of the house. In the absence of those or even at the same time as we do those, we are looking at M&A opportunities in a way to augment the things that we do today, whether it be on the technology side, whether it be on the content side, whether it be on the product side. So looking for M&A opportunities that will augment the growth that we have here on the organic side. Now the challenge is, the organic growth is so significant that if you're going to buy something, it's got to meet that hurdle rate and it's very hard to find something that would actually do that. So when you look at organic growth and then you look at M&A opportunities, in the absence of those 2 things, you're going to continue to return capital to shareholders. We do have a $200 million buyback plan in place. We spent about $20 million under that plan to date. And when we look at ways to use our capital, we weigh all those 3 things together. And ultimately, we use our capital in the best fashion.

And are the M&A opportunities more likely to be centered on specific subsegment of your business? Or is it just you're looking everywhere?

I think we're looking everywhere. I mean you look at the deal we just did recently, as I mentioned earlier, we bought this affiliate capabilities through the acquisition of XLMedia. It was a way to round out our ability to acquire customers for the sportsbooks. So that's about a $20 million acquisition with a little bit of an earn-out here in the next several months. There's nothing of scale that I would say, we can go out there and acquire tomorrow that's going to change the trajectory of our business. But when there's opportunities to have a product on the betting side or on the advertising side, you're going to go ahead and do that. Same with the technology or services side of the house, anything that kind of fills out your portfolio.

Great. Well, I think we're about out of time. So please join me in thanking Craig and Sportradar. Thank you.

Appreciate it.