Genius Sports: BetVision and the Three I’s

Discussing Genius Sports’ flagship betting product, BetVision, Matt Fleckenstein, Chief Product Officer, spotlights the importance of immediacy, intelligence and interactivity for enhancing the fan experience.

The Groundwork Before The Roof

GeniusIQ is the foundation for every new product and service being rolled out by Genius Sports. Launched in August, the next-generation sports data and AI platform delivers solutions across performance analysis, fan engagement, advertising and sports betting.

Building on the supplier’s data-led innovation across the world’s biggest sporting formats, including the Premier League, NFL, NBA, and WNBA, GeniusIQ is a data-agnostic tech layer that ingests and computes datasets ranging from rich tracking and play-by-play data to audience and behavioural data.

Applying powerful machine learning and generative AI to large-scale data, this facilitates applications from the digitalisation of sports, AI-powered decision making, immersive, personalised viewing, through to automated storytelling and content creation.

The more data GeniusIQ processes, the smarter its insights and predictive analytics become. GeniusIQ technology is already powering Premier League Data Zone, a collaboration between Premier League Productions, the Premier League, Football DataCo, and Genius Sports.

Used by major broadcasters including NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Optus Australia, ESPN Brazil, and Canal+ France, the Data Zone viewing mode integrates rich statistics and tracking metrics into live broadcasts, enhancing fan engagement with detailed data on player performance and match dynamics.

Moreover, GeniusIQ’s integration of sports data and deep learning also powers BetVision, the world’s first immersive sports wagering platform and the subject of G3’s interview with Genius’ Chief Product Officer, Matt Fleckenstein.

Immediacy, Intelligence, Interactivity

BetVision integrates live NFL streams with interactive bet slips, statistical insights, and real-time augmentations which features data-driven insights, graphic overlays, and visualisations tailored to user preferences.

“When we introduced BetVision to the industry last year there was plenty of scepticism,” explains Matt. “A lot of feedback we were receiving from clients at the time was that video didn’t seem to be adding much value to customers – if anything it was something that was getting in the way of the betting experience. Fast forward to this year and it’s a radically different message.

Genius has focused on creating a next generation in-play betting experience that meets three key criteria – what Matt labels ‘The Three I’s’. First, the experience has got to feel immediate. “As things happen on the video stream, the rest of the betting experience from stats to tracking needs to keep up, necessitating low latency.”

The second ‘I’ is around intelligence. “How do you make the product smart, so it knows and understands what’s happening in the game? For example, if a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions makes a long catch the odds will change on the over/under for total receiving yards and a contextual notification will pop up about what’s going to happen on the team’s next drive.”

The third ‘I’ is about making BetVision as interactive as possible. “Genius Sports is uniquely situated to offer the features we’ve enabled on the technology. There is the player tracking, ball tracking – we know where everything is on the field – meaning we can turn on augmentation to highlight key players you can potentially bet on. For instance, if I highlight Brandon Aiyuk from the 49ers, I get his stats and his player prop, so I’m not just passively watching the game.”

Some of these advanced features went live during the playoffs prior to the Super Bowl won by Philadelphia Eagles, stopping Kansas City Chiefs from winning an unprecedented three-peat.

“Last year there was a nervousness or hesitation about making the investment into BetVision. Now we’re being asked when football and basketball leagues will be available. It’s a different conversation entirely.

“I feel like we’re at that fun point with the product where the fundamentals are in place so we can now focus on making it as unique an experience as possible through that interactivity which drives greater customer engagement. It’s a proven formula that a greater level of control tends to move the needle up and to the right.”

Matt is able to share encouraging data points that indicate progress. One is feature adoption – sportsbooks are deepening the integration of BetVision into their applications. Last season, this adoption was oriented toward low latency streaming and real-time statistics.

This season, sportsbooks have committed to integrate real-time dynamic odds for granular markets and bet slips. This is work they need to seriously commit to and put on their roadmap – and it’s something they’re choosing to do as a priority.

“A second indicator of progress is that last year tens of millions of NFL fans engaged with BetVision,” explains Matt. “Year-over-year viewership doubled. This demonstrates that a) you’re seeing a lot of interest in the experience that we’re enabling and b) deep engagement. People who use BetVision are returning 10-11 times per game to interact with the product.”

Bull By The Horns

NFL. One of the most popular leagues in world sport. 22 players on the field at any one time, some of which can run faster than 21mph. Quarterbacks that throw a ball at over 60mph. Multiple referees on the field. A combined squad roster of 106 players. Lengthy periods of inactivity followed by short, sharp action.

From an AI and optical tracking perspective, American football has its fair share of problems to solve. Why, G3 asks Matt imploringly, choose NFL as the opening gambit for BetVision?

“Two reasons really. First, Genius Sports has enjoyed an incredibly strong partnership with the NFL for many years. We have a joint innovation roadmap that we’re constantly aligning and pushing the envelope from a technology perspective.

“Creating a next generation watch and bet experience was on that innovation roadmap. Something that’s critical for us is that our partners have a real buy-in for disruptive change and the NFL were the first to raise their hand and say we’re ready to go all-in.

“The second factor is the vast amount of NFL data we’ve collected over the years tracking what’s happening on the field. Some of that data – ball and player tracking – is provided to us by the NFL and we create advanced statistics in-house. We have an intimate knowledge of developing low latency video streams and data.”

Expanding BetVision into new sports will naturally have its own complications but these are matters Genius Sports tackles every day, plus the most difficult of those development challenges have already been solved in creating the product for NFL.

The aim now, Matt explains, is to create a magical fan experience which makes customers want to engage even more. There are plenty of lessons learned with the NFL product that will make this expansion easier and faster.

“With BetVision for NFL, we worked for 18-24 months pre-launch whereas with additional sports it’ll be much shorter timeframes – around six to nine months of partnering, testing, and going live.

“For football and basketball, we’ve already had robust deployment of Genius IQ, our AI and data platform. We’re far along in taking on those sports in interesting ways. We will be launching our football product across 20-plus leagues in late Q1/Q2, with basketball later in Q3/Q4.”

Genius Sports has been reworking agreements with rights holders and sportsbooks for some time to prepare for the rollout of BetVision.

As such, a lot of the existing deals already in place enabled them to get BetVision out into the market across several clients at pace, making such an impact that Matt anticipates other leagues and rights holders to be wanting a piece of the BetVision pie sooner rather than later.

In the 2023-24 NFL season, BetVision was primarily a US-only experience. In 2024-25, the addition of global sports with football and basketball will see Genius’ market footprint grow exponentially. So far, the US market has been the centre of the bullseye.

In 2025, BetVision will start moving into the next ring where you’ll see greater adoption in Europe and increasing interest from Asia and Latin America.

“We’re on the cusp of going from being US-centric to a much more global reach, both because of the sports we’re expanding into with BetVision and that we’re now ready to go bigger.”

A New Standard

BetVision is being built with a broader fan vision model in mind. The primary application is to enable interactive in-play betting, but beyond this Matt envisages innovations such as a fantasy mode, coaching mode where you’re seeing things through the lens of coaches on the side lines – even a player mode.

“The work we’re doing to deploy computer vision and build rich 3D real-time simulations of what’s happening on-pitch or on-court enables you to see the game through individual players’ eyes.

“Whether it’s your mobile phone, TV screen or on a virtual reality headset in the future, we think there’s a lot of potential growth and appetite for driving a broader fan experience in the years ahead.”

When Genius set out to create this technology, the business wanted to set a new standard for what in-play betting can look like. That remains the goal but, ultimately, it’s the sports fans and bettors that are going to determine how far and broad BetVision goes.

“We’re making good progress,” Matt surmises. “All you need do is look at some of the other folks in the marketplace who are now trying to copy us or accept less. We have unique advantages at Genius Sports that allow us to create the best possible experience, but certainly I believe there’s an appetite across geographies and sports for more interactive experiences than what’s out there.

“The audience for BetVision is only going to grow as younger generations don’t passively watch sports. They want to engage and be participatory with a gaming-like experience – a need that BetVision services.”

The post Genius Sports: BetVision and the Three I’s appeared first on G3 Newswire.

​Discussing Genius Sports’ flagship betting product, BetVision, Matt Fleckenstein, Chief Product Officer, spotlights the importance of immediacy, intelligence and interactivity for enhancing the fan experience. The Groundwork Before The Roof GeniusIQ is the foundation for every new product and service being rolled out by Genius Sports. Launched in August, the next-generation sports data and AI…
The post Genius Sports: BetVision and the Three I’s appeared first on G3 Newswire.