With a growing demand from bettors for more granular data, sportsbooks are looking towards a future where player props, same game parlays and micro markets reign supreme. Dan Hannigan-Daley, CEO at Sports Info Solutions, takes us on the journey towards a data revolution across North America.
It is near impossible in today’s sporting experience to go through an entire game or even the run of highlights and not see a reference to some level of advanced analytics; Expected Points per Attempt (EPA), Weighted on Base Average (wOBA), Expected Goals (xG) and on and on. With more data available, audiences are expecting more data to be visible within that experience. They know when a team should go for it on 4th and 2, and they expect their coach to make that decision too!
Interestingly, within the world of sports betting, we’re very much in the infancy of leveraging advanced ‘moneyball’ statistics and analytics to weave them into our betting models, driving further price origination and model optimization, which with the appropriate oversight should and would lead to improved margins for the operators, while enabling a generally better experience for customers. This is especially true for the major US sports, where considerable resources are being deployed to create more and improved products as we barrel toward a future where player props, same game parlays and micro markets reign supreme.
At Sports Info Solutions, we’re focused on creating the most advanced, accurate datasets, compounded with unique research and analytics that have helped professional sports teams across the MLB, NBA and NFL make better decisions for 20+ years. This information has quite literally changed the way sports are played on the field and how they are managed off the field.
We’ve been able to identify the gaps in the way teams are operating alongside the data that is available and help them advance their interests (i.e. their ability to win) by driving strategic change; the proliferation of the shift in baseball as a prominent example, which has gone so far to now prompt a rule change to remove it given how successful it has been.
As you might expect, we’re well on our way to driving change within the sports betting arena through leveraging that same methodology and data approach as we firmly believe (and our customers do, which has been validated numerous times) that we’re only at the beginning of the continued data revolution and those who bake in the advanced data and metrics into their betting models will see outsized returns, especially with the aforementioned push in the US towards player-based products.
How can you accurately price the Receiving Yards total for Davante Adams if you don’t know how many snaps he is likely to play from the slot vs outside and which coverage schemes he excels against versus which he struggles against? This is specifically the type of granular data we provide and without it in the market, there is a reason why today it is generally well known that the player prop markets are ‘soft’ and ‘beatable’ (outside of operators bumping their overround up, knowing their numbers are likely not all that accurate).
Concurrently, with our advanced historical database, sporting knowledge and technological flexibility, we are forging a path to enable more products and content for the North American sportsbook operator and subsequently, the consumer.
By supporting emerging sports properties in the US like the Canadian Elite Basketball League, the Basketball Tournament (TBT) or Indoor Football League as an official data provider, we can help fill the content gaps that exist currently within the sports betting calendar. Not to mention the considerable market gap that exists within Minor League and College Baseball, where over 7,500 games are currently not covered in any capacity by Sportsbooks, despite the 100s of soccer leagues globally that are.
Our coveted historical database for MiLB and College Baseball is unrivalled, which is why 20+ MLB teams are partners of ours. And yes, we are well aware of the historical struggles operators have had when offering betting on these markets; that is because they lack the data and knowledge of how the game is actually different at those levels relative to MLB or international baseball.
As an organization, we are very early on our journey to support an improved North American sports betting data ecosystem, following a pivot in early 2022 to complement our team analytics products that drive value for 35+ professional sports organizations.
We know the roadmaps are long and tedious and that integrations are hard, but we also know the value we provide to our partners does not end with that initial integration. We are constantly moving, collecting more and more data, advancing our team and betting models and driving innovation within the sports we support.
In our evidently biased view, a bet on us is a bet worth taking for operators and platform providers as at the end of the day, content that resonates with the consumer in North America and the corresponding data to make that content prolific will be critical.
