The Canadian Premier League will add a betting component to its product, the soccer league announced July 15. The announcement follows the legalization of single-game betting in Canada in June.
The betting component will enable viewers to wager on different aspects of individual games.
The same day Mediapro Canada, which owns the soccer league’s broadcast rights, announced it was partnering with Genius Sports Limited to exclusively distribute video streams of the soccer league and of Canadian Championship games. Genius Sports is a U.K.-based data and technology company that provides data and video streaming to an international clientele of bookmakers.
Beginning next year bettors will be able to wager on CPL games—which is happening in tandem with the government’s legalizing of single-game wagers, which has opened the regulation of such wagers to individual provinces and territories.
Mediapro Canada CEO Oscar Lopez commented, “When we purchased the broadcast rights to the CPL in Canada, it also included the audiovisual betting rights. There are three or four major companies who deal in sports betting rights and Genius Sports is one of them. They presented us the most complete offer to us in all aspects.”
Genius is the exclusive data provider to sportsbooks for NASCAR, NFL, NBA and many other sports leagues.
Genius COO Sean Conroy commented, “We’re a technology company at our core, and we’re focused on data-driven solutions and we sit at the intersection between sports rights holders, media companies, streaming and broadcast providers and sports-betting organizations.” He added, “We provide data-driven solutions that connect those part of the sports ecosystem.”
Conroy noted that the partnership will expand Canadian soccer to a larger, international audience that may not be aware of CPL.
Lopez said that the pandemic last year hampered growth of the league. “This year is another year of transition and next season we hope to get back on the original plan we had for the league, where we want to continue to grow the presence of Canadian soccer.”
