Genius Sports and CFL Announce Data and Tech Partnership

Official sports data, technology and content supplier Genius Sports announced today it entered into a transformative sports data and global technology partnership with the Canadian Football League (CFL).

Accelerate Growth Plans

The landmark strategic partnership deal between Genius Sports and the CFL, the second-largest football league in the world with over 100 years of history, will see the sports data company provide a wide range of technology and services to help growth acceleration and new audience engagement plans of the league.

“By providing the CFL with an incredible range of sports technology solutions, Genius Sports is setting a new precedent for sports partnerships. Together, we will revolutionize the entire CFL product, delivering truly immersive experiences for their existing fans and attracting new audiences who crave year-round, top-flight football action.”

Mark Locke, CEO, Genius Sports

Using the successful distribution of its official betting products for the English Premier League (EPL) and the National Football League (NFL) as a blueprint, Genius Sports, as part of the deal, is gaining the exclusive commercial rights of CFL’s official data and video content distributed via sportsbooks across international markets.

The agreement also stipulates that Genius Sports will acquire a minority stake in the new CFL commercial arm, CFL Ventures, to add further stimulus by the opportunity to benefit from the leagues’ growth.

‘Launch a New Era’

Hailing the partnership potential to “launch a new era’ for the league, Commissioner of the CFL Randy Ambrosie outlined all the benefits of the transformative agreement reached with Genius Sports.

“It provides access to the technology and tools we need to engage our existing fans, and reach new ones, in exciting, innovative and highly customized ways. This goes beyond transforming our marketing. It can redefine our relationship with fans, partners and other key stakeholders, here in Canada and globally.”

Randy Ambrosie, Commissioner, CFL

The deal will allow the CFL to utilize the entire range of data, tech, media and creative assets acquired by Genius Sports in the past 12 months, including Sportzcast, FanHub, Second Spectrum, and Spirable, to benefit from one of the widest and most innovative data ecosystems available in sports globally.

The agreement that is entering into force from January 2022 will power the entire digital infrastructure of the CFL, providing live broadcast augmentation, enhanced data tracking tools, personalized and targeted fan engagement solutions, streaming capabilities across several platforms, data collection tech for both play-by-play and scoreboard data, analytics, as well as Genius’ integrity services.