Betfair Exchange to leave 32 UK football matches “unmanaged” as data row continues
Pressure continues to mount on operators as they face in-play outages at start of new EFL season
Betfair will leave more than 30 UK football games “unmanaged” on its exchange when the season kicks off this weekend, as the negotiations around UK football data rumble on.
The exchange firm emailed its market-makers and high-volume customers this week warning them about the unmanaged markets, which essentially means they won’t be suspended for goals, red cards and similar.
Thirty-two games will be unmanaged in total, across English Football League One and Two, and the top three Scottish divisions.
In a statement provided to EGR, a Betfair spokesperson said: “A small percentage of lower-tier football games will be unmanaged whilst we work through some technical and commercial considerations. We will retain a strong service level on all Tier 1 football.”
The operator will continue to manage the games shown on streams on TV but on a seven-second delay.
In the email, Betfair said changes were due to “unforeseen circumstances” but it is understood to be a response to the ongoing dispute around FootballDataCo (FDC) data, which Betgenius now own the rights to.
The firm has said it will be clamping down on scouts from other data firms, as UK football kicks off in earnest this week.
Betfair is thought to have previously been using Perform data, although the company has not yet publicly commented on the issue, despite being the previous official rights holder.
Betfair will leave 32 UK football games unmanaged this weekend
Rival supplier Sportradar is facing similar issues to Perform, with the firm telling customers in a recent email it “understands some may feel they have little choice but to sign up for the official feed”.
In a statement provided to EGR this morning, Sportradar’s MD of sports partnerships, David Lampitt, said the firm would continue to provide an alternative data feed for UK football.
This would likely entail the continued use of in-stadia scouts and TV pictures.
“We believe there should always be the opportunity for fair competition in the market where customers have a choice about which provider they work with, the price they pay and the product they take,” Lampitt said.
“There is clearly a widely shared concern regarding the Football DataCo and Betgenius set-up and the attempts to remove that choice with an enforced information monopoly.”
To date, Betfred is the only major UK operator to publicly sign up to the Genius/FDC feed.
Genius and Perform both declined to comment.