Score Media and Gaming has published its financial results for Q1 2020, citing total revenue of $9.2m, slightly down from $9.5m year-on-year.
In a quarter that saw theScore Bet go live in-market for the first time, the company generated $8.8m in handle and gross gaming revenue of $242,000. When taking into account promotional costs and fair value adjustments on unsettled bets, this resulted in negative net gaming revenue of $26,000 for the period.
EBITDA loss in the period was reported as $4.8m versus $1m year-on-year. The increase in loss, said the company, was primarily the result of additional expenses incurred in connection with the launch and expansion of the firm’s gaming operations.
The company also noted in its update that during the quarter, growth in direct advertising revenue had been offset by a decline in programmatic revenue, resulting from the impact of lower demand from a programmatic partner who, prior to January 2019, was a significant buyer of its programmatic inventory, as well as more limited programmatic inventory in New Jersey and surrounding states related to the launch of theScore Bet.
As part of the update, theScore also noted that it had made history by becoming the first sports media company in North America to create and launch a mobile sportsbook. theScore Bet went live in New Jersey ahead of the NFL Football season and generated $8.8m in handle in Q1 F2020, its first three months of operation.
Additionally, the company launched FUSE by theScore, a new suite of integrations linking its media and sports betting platforms. FUSE allows users to create a betslip from within theScore’s sports app via native integrations embedded directly into box score pages.
Subject to receiving all required licenses and approvals, the firm said that it anticipates launching theScore Bet in Indiana under its multi-state market access framework agreement with Penn National Gaming later this year, with other states to follow. It continues to pursue additional market access opportunities for theScore Bet across the United States.
“It was a huge achievement by our product development team to create and launch a best-in-class, natively-built mobile sportsbook at the very beginning of F2020,” said John Levy, Founder and CEO of theScore. “Our unique integrated approach to media and sports betting sets us apart from any other operator and enabled us to hit the ground running in our launch state of New Jersey.
“But New Jersey is only the start for us. As we grow our footprint there, we are also moving to quickly expand our presence across the United States. Under our existing multi-state market access framework agreement with Penn National, we anticipate launching theScore Bet in Indiana later this year, pending receipt of all relevant licenses and approvals, with more states to follow. At the same time, we continue to actively explore other market access opportunities.
“Further, our hypothesis that sports app users would engage with our gaming product was reinforced in our first quarter of operation. Approximately three quarters of fans who placed a wager on theScore Bet in Q1 came directly from theScore sports app, supporting our powerful integration of media and gaming. Sports app users are also proving more valuable in terms of handle, gross gaming revenue, and retention than non-sports app users.
“This is especially exciting given the record user engagement we saw on our sports app in Q1, as well as the robust product road map we have in place to further strengthen the connection between our media and gaming platforms, including new product features and cross-promotional capabilities.”
User sessions of theScore sports app on iOS and Android reached 523 million in Q1 F2020, year-on-year growth of 11% and a new all-time quarterly record. This represents 123 app sessions-per-user-per-month on a base of 4.3 million average monthly app users.
Total video views of theScore esports’ content hit 74 million for Q1 F2020, year-over-year growth of 84%. Total watch hours for theScore esports’ YouTube channel reached 5.6 million, year-on-year growth of 28%. An additional 125,000 YouTube subscribers were added during the period, with channel subscribers surpassing one million in November.
theScore’s social sports content across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram achieved an average monthly reach of approximately 97 million in Q1 F2019, ahead by 44% year-on-year. After launching on the popular video-sharing social networking service TikTok towards the end of Q4 F2019, its TikTok account now exceeds 500,000 followers and has quickly become one of the most popular sports media accounts on the platform.
