IMG Arena and the PGA Tour on the future of in-play golf betting

EGR Intel: Do you see the live betting potential for golf being similar to the success you had with tennis?

MW: The last 10-15 years have shown that total sportsbook turnover has grown to unprecedented levels at the result of the introduction of in-play sports data, and official data takes that one step further.

In 2012, when we brought official tennis data services to the sector, which disrupted the market and acted as a catalyst for faster and more accurate data. It also spurred on other sports to license their data as well. Today, that tennis service is used by virtually the entire sports sector, and when we look at other opportunities to work with sports to generate similar quality sports data that can optimize a live betting product, then naturally our thoughts turned to golf.

EGR Intel: What makes golf such an attractive sport for in-play betting?

MW: When you think about the format of golf it is absolutely perfect for live betting. You have a tournament that contains thousands of shots, and each one throws up hundreds of immediate betting opportunities which can be quickly created and settled. This rapid creation and settlement of markets mirrors exactly what we’ve seen in other sport formats which have become popular with live betting. The introduction of distances on shots, for example, are levels of data which have never been seen before. Today, you can’t really get any live data which is accurate because audio visual broadcast is delivered on a delayed basis. Our data is delivered in real-time to ultra-low latency which operators can trust will deliver with relevant shot information and they can have the confidence to offer the full range of betting markets akin to other sports.

EGR Intel: Have operator been calling for this for some time?

MW: Absolutely, when you consider that a sports betting operator today is basically dependent on the range of data input on sport that it receives, golf is an area where there is simply a lack of quality information available to them. As a result, they are simply not able to offer the breadth of product that they would want to be offering, so any additional information they can get is something they have been very proactive at seeking out and seeing if we have the capability of bringing this to them. Knowing the PGA Tour as we do and understanding everything the Tour was seeking to do, we’ve been able to have a good look at the ShotLink data service and how that compares to information coming from other official sports information services. It really stacks up incredibly well.

EGR Intel: Why is it so important for the PGA to engage with the sports betting sector?

Lance Stover (LS): We want to make sure we meet the needs of our consumers and fans, and we’ve seen both domestically with respect to daily fantasy and internationally with gambling that it is a great engagement tool. We are trying to reach brand new fans who might have engagement with other sports but might not have had the inkling to take a look at golf. We see an enormous opportunity for us in partnership with IMG Arena to meet those needs and really grow the game and deliver value back to our players whose interests we ultimately represent.

EGR Intel: What did IMG bring to the table that other companies couldn’t?

LS: We took a very long hard look at the space to try and understand if and how we would enter. We spoke to all the players in the space, but IMG was undoubtedly the right choice for us. First and foremost they represent the interests of right holders and they understand the intellectual property that we’ve built. As you’ve seen with the rebranding of IMG Arena, they’ve also got a fan-first approach, they are innovative, they are digital technology leaders, and I really think they are going to change the landscape of sports gambling as it pertains to golf and come up with some entertaining ways to engage consumers. IMG also has huge size and scale, and they have found success in other sports, so it was the logical choice for us.

EGR Intel: Is this a first-of-its-kind deal for the PGA too?

LS: For over 30 years we pioneered the data collection system that we use on-site and that data is used for a variety of purposes on our PGA Tour digital platforms, it powers our scoreboards and it’s leveraged in the broadcasts. We have leveraged this system extensively. With respect to that we did syndicate the data to a number of different affiliates, but in terms of actually licensing that data for the purposes of sports betting outside of North America, this is a first for us.

EGR Intel: How do you think this will help grow the sport of golf?

LS: We already distribute our content to over 220 countries and we recently did a big deal with Discovery with respect to our rights outside the United States with our original content. What we are looking to do with IMG Arena here is really extend that platform to reach a new audience who are interested in sports gambling and to leverage IMG’s relationships with media syndicates and others to see the value of our ShotLink data and the visualisations with things like to shot maps, as well as some video to further bring that sport more broadly. As Max alluded to, golf is a bit of a sleeping giant as there is not that much sports gambling done on it, and with IMG taking our raw product and creating something unique and entertaining, we think that fans will be engaged in a very meaningful way.