Sportradar Hit with Antitrust Complaint in EU and UK

A commercial fight between two sports betting suppliers has landed on the desks of European regulators. Sportradar is now answering an antitrust complaint in the European Union and the United Kingdom, filed on 14 October by Altenar Technologies, a developer of sportsbook software used by operators across the continent. The filings target the exclusive deals that give Sportradar official live data from several major leagues.

Altenar claims those arrangements squeeze rival suppliers out of the market and leave bookmakers with nowhere else to buy the feeds their in-play products run on. Neither regulator has opened a formal case yet. But the penalty attached to a confirmed breach, up to a tenth of global annual turnover under EU rules, gives the filings weight that a private contract dispute would never carry.

What Altenar Wants Regulators to Examine

The complaints centre on Sportradar’s agreements with Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and the Association of Tennis Professionals, four properties that generate enormous in-play betting volume. Those contracts hand the company exclusive rights to collect official data from the competitions and distribute it. They also let it build live betting odds from the same feeds. Speed decides the value of in-play markets, which makes official league data a far better product than anything scraped from a broadcast stream.

Altenar argues that control of the primary sources gives Sportradar an advantage competitors cannot match on merit. It told regulators that bookmakers across Europe and Britain need credible alternative suppliers if competition and innovation are going to survive in the sector. The firm also asked the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority for interim measures, which would open access to the disputed data while the case is assessed rather than years after the fact. So Sportradar is defending an antitrust complaint built on four contracts that sit at the centre of its European business.

Regulators Acknowledge the Filings Without Committing

The regulators themselves gave little away. The European Commission confirmed it received information about the dispute and said it is reviewing the material. The CMA stuck to its standard line and declined to comment on anything outside a formal investigation, so neither answer amounts to an opened case.

Competition authorities receive far more complaints than they ever act on. Either regulator can close the file without further action, request information from both parties, or escalate to a formal probe, and each of those routes runs on its own timetable. Until one of them moves, Sportradar faces an antitrust complaint parked in an assessment stage that can run for months.

Sportradar Rejects the Antitrust Complaint as a Rehash

Sportradar dismissed the antitrust complaint as unnecessary and described it as a restatement of commercial disputes that already exist between the two companies. It also said it follows competition law wherever it operates. That position has not shifted since the argument between the two companies first reached a courtroom in the United States.

The two sides have history. Back in March, Altenar filed a monopolisation suit against Sportradar in a US court, accusing it of locking up the market for official live sports data in America. Sportradar now meets an antitrust complaint covering the same ground in Europe, where regulators can act without waiting for a trial.

Pressure Arrives From More Than One Direction

Scrutiny of the business came from a different direction earlier this year. In April, short-selling research firms Muddy Waters and Callisto Research alleged that Sportradar drew substantial income from unlicensed gambling operators, and the share price slid on the reports. The company rejected the claims and said the research misrepresented its business to serve short positions.

Those allegations remain unproven, and so do Altenar’s. Still, Sportradar is handling an antitrust complaint in Europe, a monopolisation suit in the United States and short-seller accusations about its client base, all inside seven months. Few data suppliers in this industry have had to defend on three fronts at once.

Why Bookmakers Are Watching the Outcome

The financial picture has strengthened right through the dispute. Sportradar guided towards roughly $1.7 billion in annual revenue in August, then lifted that forecast by 20%, and it has pointed to prediction markets and the integration of IMG Arena as its next growth engines. Sportradar has absorbed an antitrust complaint, a lawsuit and a short-seller campaign without any dent in the underlying business.

For operators, the practical stake is pricing. Should Sportradar lose an antitrust complaint of this kind and face an access remedy, the cost of official in-play feeds could fall across the market. Smaller sportsbook platforms would then gain room to bid for contracts they cannot realistically win today. A decision in the company’s favour locks the current structure in place for years.

Nothing changes for bettors in the short term, because the filings only start a process that regulators now control. Sportradar answers this antitrust complaint to two authorities rather than a court. The Commission and the CMA will decide how far to take it, and the interim measures requested in Britain remain the quickest route to any real shift in access. Sportradar keeps selling the data in the meantime, and Altenar keeps pushing for a way in.