Sportradar Q3 2026 Results: Growth Meets Rising Costs

Key Points

• Revenue was up 24% to a very respectable €362.5 million, but unfortunately that’s about where the good news ends. With sports rights costs practically doubling, the adjusted EBITDA margin took a bit of a hit instead.
• Prediction markets finally started contributing to Sportradar’s results this quarter. Polymarket, Kalshi, Novig and Robinhood are all now among Sportradar’s clients.
• Full-year guidance hasn’t changed, but that Q4 target is going to be a real challenge for the company, it needs to knock out between €431 million and €446 million in Q4 revenue to meet its full-year target. That’s a big ask after such a strong Q3.

Sportradar Q3 2026 Results: Revenue Jumps 24% and Rights Bills Go Ballistic

Sportradar has done it, they’ve had a solid 24% revenue growth in Q3, but now they’ve got a rather large obstacle to overcome in Q4. To meet its full-year target, the company needs to take home a whopping €431 million to €446 million in Q4 revenue. So much for a well-deserved breather.

Group revenue came in at €362.5 million, up from €292.1 million in the same quarter last year. Profit was a decent €27 million and adjusted EBITDA reached €102.2 million. But the company is sticking to its full-year guidance, with no changes there.

As expected, Betting Technology & Solutions remained the main driver of revenue, with a solid 27% growth to €296.7 million. Betting and gaming content did really well too, jumping 37% to €242 million. A big hand to IMG Arena rights and new prediction market clients there.

But on the flip side, Managed betting services took a bit of a slide, revenue fell 3% to €54.7 million after a pretty rough couple of months of soccer results in late August and early September hammered margins. Still, turnover in this business was still up at a double-digit clip, thanks to a $2.5 billion World Cup betting boost.

The higher content revenue came with a rather large price tag though. Sports rights expenses were up a whopping 54% at roughly €112 million. Sportradar’s adjusted EBITDA margin dropped from 29.0% to 28.2%, which means the company is now taking home less money per euro of revenue. Not ideal.

The US continued to fly in Q3 with a 47% revenue increase to €98 million. That’s 27% of group sales for those keeping track. That’s a big jump up from Q2, when US revenue only grew 16%, so it’s clear they’ve really made a push in the last quarter. A year ago, it was only 23% of Sportradar’s revenue.

IMG Arena Celebrates its First Birthday and the Company Says the Deal Was Worth It

These results come just a year after the Sportradar/IMG Arena deal went down on November 1st 2025.

Sportradar didn’t pay a penny for the portfolio, it was valued at a $225 million total consideration, mostly comprising $122 million in seller prepayments to rights holders, and $103 million to come over the next couple of years.

The company has got a couple of big payments to make in the next year, $50 million in Q4 and another $50 million after that. The Chief Financial Officer Craig Felenstein let slip that Sportradar was essentially paid to take the rights on.

Finally, Sportradar Gets Benefits of Prediction Markets in Q3 Figures

The CEO of the firm Carsten Koerl stated that Q3 was the first quarter where the firm felt the benefit from prediction markets. The statement made by him refers to the “significant contributions from across the prediction markets landscape” as part of its growth.

Now, Polymarket utilises the services of Sportradar in more than 20 leagues, such as the NBA and Bundesliga. Kalshi signed an agreement earlier in the year, after which Novig became the third exchange partner of the firm. Furthermore, Robinhood became its first broker client.

Around 10 market makers have signed deals with the firm, out of more than 300 market makers all over the world. As Koerl noted, these are the firms that bring bigger opportunities.

Felenstein specified that the deals are fixed fees and variable fees based on the volume of trading. Furthermore, Koerl talked about the cost of entering the sector: “Entering the space requires minimal investment and produces high incremental margins.”

The NBA has announced its prediction market framework on 26 October. According to that information, Kalshi and Polymarket have become the preferred exchanges for it. The company supplies the official NBA data used by these exchanges for authorised market settlements.

Restrictions could affect the operation of prediction markets in the United States as stated in the company’s earnings release. According to Koerl, the markets excluded by the company do not represent significant ones.

Full-Year Forecast Stands but Q4 Needs To Generate Revenue

Sportradar has retained the revenue forecast of the company for 2026 at €1,518 million to €1,533 million. The adjusted EBITDA goal is also unchanged at €360 million to €368 million.

These forecasts were set back on 3 August when the company decreased the revenue forecast to €1.56 billion and €1.58 billion. Also, it lowered the adjusted EBITDA forecast to €390 million and €400 million.

According to the figures of Sportradar, the company has received €1,086.8 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2026. Hence, the company needs between €431 million and €446 million in Q4 to reach the annual goal.

Compared to Q3 revenue of €362.5 million, the last quarter should be 19% to 23% higher. According to the figures from 3 August, Sportradar has generated €378 million in revenue in Q2. 

Bet On Brazil Goes Sour For Sportradar

Brazil’s betting restrictions are just one more headache for Sportradar, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s signature on Provisional Measure 1,394 on the 25th of September is a major hit. This move bans fixed-odds betting across the entire country.

During their earnings call, Felenstein asked analysts to imagine a scenario where Brazil contributes a bit more than 60 million Euros a year in revenue. Using this rough estimate, you’d expect around 25% of that amount to come in during Q4.

Sportradar hasn’t started cutting back on the costs associated with its Brazilian business yet. So, the company is still taking on the costs of running offices, employing staff and securing sports rights, even though the revenue from Brazil is currently uncertain.

Koerl points out that the measure will stay in place while Congress considers it, and at the moment around 50 Sportradar employees are based in Brazil.

That Supreme Court hearing on the 3rd of November was a public thing, but they didn’t produce a verdict. Now it’s down to Congress to get something sorted, which they have to do by the 23rd of November.

Sportradar Takes A Big Chunk Out Of Its Cash Stash Ahead Of The Atrium Sale

Sportradar’s got a lot less cash in its bank now. By the end of September it was down to just 190 million Euros, that’s from the 365 million Euros it had at the end of last year.

The company spent 352 million Euros on buying back its own shares during the first 9 months of the year. Free cash flow came in at 177 million Euros, but at the same time it had to splash out another 203 million Euros for rights licence payments as part of its investment activities.

Total liquidity is still sitting at 440 million Euros, which includes an unused credit facility of 250 million Euros. And don’t forget Sportradar hasn’t got any debt.

But things are looking grim for Q4, Felenstein expects cash to be going out rather than coming in, and he’s blaming the timing of rights payments and the cash flows from prediction markets for that.

On the bright side, Sportradar might see some relief when the sale of Atrium Sports goes through. That’s the deal with Teamworks that was announced way back on the 7th of October, but it will depend on a few conditions being met before it can happen.

Atrium is the main source of the 10.3 million Euros that Sportradar makes from its sports performance revenue line, which actually dropped by 8%. If you do a rough calculation based on that number, the sale would take out around 41 million Euros a year in revenue.

Management reckon the sale price will be an even better deal because it will give them a double-digit EBITDA multiple for their money. Atrium’s EBITDA margin is roughly 30% above the market value.

Looking at the market data, Sportradar shares closed at $14.20 on the 3rd of November, and that was up 10.3% for the day, but the share price is still 40.3% lower than where it was at the end of last year.

Expert Analysis: Is Sportradar’s 24% Growth Worth the Price Tag?

We’re not convinced that Sportradar’s 24% revenue boost tells the whole story. After all, costs associated with sports rights surged a whopping 54%, and that ate into the adjusted EBITDA margin too.

Management is expecting a recovery in Q4 and for the rest of 2027, citing a 290-point margin hike last year and almost a 100-point gain this year, with Felenstein pointing to these improvements. Though to be fair, these were some pretty encouraging numbers, especially last year.

Investors who are defending the results might say that IMG content costs tend to be highest in Q2 and Q3, so some of the margin decline can be put down to seasonality. We’d rather see that improvement in Q4 than take it on management’s word for it.

Prediction markets are more of a concern though: The rules on these are still up in the air, Felenstein even acknowledged that traditional betting markets were only growing at a snail’s pace compared to double digits that used to be expected.

Our view is that Sportradar is pretty much counting on some uncertain market to prop up its business as the growth in its traditional side slows. One analyst on the call even pointed out that a number of US states have banned prediction markets, and a Supreme Court ruling could totally shake things up.

Some investors might look at prediction markets as just another customer demographic, but Koerl also made the point that Sportradar’s contracts stop its content being used in markets that are banned. The problem is though, a nationwide ban would put that protection under way more pressure than just a few smaller markets being cut out.

Koerl reckons that a well-regulated system is the best way to protect fans, bettors and sports, but can that even work in the US when state and federal authorities are still at odds over who gets to control prediction markets?

As far as we are concerned, Sportradar is pretty much reliant on regulatory decisions in two different hemispheres, almost as much as its actual sports data business. Management will be releasing 2027 guidance when they come out with their Q4 results. And those numbers will go a long way to show whether Sportradar’s 24% growth can keep up without putting even more pressure on its margins.