Sportradar's exclusive data deals draw EU and UK antitrust scrutiny

Altenar Technologies filed competition complaints against Sportradar with the European Commission and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority on October 14, targeting the Swiss data company's exclusive agreements with Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL, and the Association of Tennis Professionals.

The complaints rest on a single structural claim: that Sportradar's control of official live sports data — the feed bookmakers need to offer in-play betting — effectively locks rival suppliers out of the market. Altenar, which builds sportsbook software and competes for the same bookmaker clients, argues that without access to alternative data sources, innovation stalls and pricing power concentrates in one place.

Sportradar's response was to call the complaints a reiteration of existing commercial disputes. That framing is worth taking seriously, because it is partly true. Altenar filed a US antitrust lawsuit against Sportradar in March of this year making substantially the same argument in an American court. The European filings extend an existing legal campaign rather than open a new front from a standing start.

But the extension matters. EU competition enforcement operates on a different scale. If the European Commission were to open a formal investigation and ultimately find a violation, fines can reach ten percent of a company's annual global revenue. The Commission confirmed it had received information on the dispute and was reviewing it. The CMA declined to comment, which is its standard position on matters that have not become formal proceedings. Neither response amounts to an investigation. Both leave the door open.

The core question neither filing resolves is whether Sportradar's exclusive league agreements constitute an anticompetitive restriction or simply reflect what sports organizations chose to negotiate. Leagues grant exclusive data rights because exclusivity commands a premium. Sportradar pays for that exclusivity. The argument that a company has illegally foreclosed competition by outbidding rivals for contracts is harder to sustain than the argument that it has done so through technical or contractual barriers that have nothing to do with price. Which version of the story the Commission eventually accepts — if it accepts any — determines everything about where this lands.

I have seen antitrust complaints against data monopolists move slowly enough that the market structure they target has already shifted by the time a formal decision arrives. The Sportradar situation has a specific feature that could accelerate things: Altenar is also asking the CMA to impose interim measures, granting competitor access to the data while the investigation proceeds. Interim relief is harder to obtain than a complaint filing, but it is the mechanism that would actually change commercial conditions before a final ruling. Whether the CMA has appetite for that step is not yet on the public record.