The third quarter of 2021 brought positive results for sports betting and media business theScore.
Speaking to BNN Bloomberg, John Levy, Chairman and CEO of theScore, discussed publication of the latest financial results, which saw media revenue increase 5% compared to 2019 to $8.9 million – a third quarter revenue.
“From our perspective, it was a solid quarter, both from a media and sports betting performance standpoint,” Levy remarked.
“Our media revenue for the quarter was $8.9 million which I think is the highest we’ve had for the quarter. We had record engagement with our users post-COVID in a situation where sports leagues and the timing of the league is still off-kilter a bit, but people are hitting our app 126 times a month which is also a record.
“On our social platforms we had pretty solid performances both for Score and for esports, and when we look at our gaming handle, we did just over $73 million and in March alone, it was over $30 million with the return of March Madness.”
In March, theScore completed a US initial public offering and listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, which raised gross proceeds of $186.3 million.
Meanwhile, total Q3 F2021 gaming handle on theScore Bet was $73.0 million, with the firm generating the highest-ever betting handle for a single month, $30.8 million in March 2021.
“It’s a very exciting time for us. There’s a whole bunch of moving parts on a lot of fronts. We’re already up and operating in four states in the US – New Jersey, Indiana, Colorado and Iowa – so in terms of our outlook, part of the plan is to continue to grow in those states. We also plan on doubling within the next 12 months in those four states.”
Looking ahead to the future, Levy reaffirmed that theScore does not want to be ‘reliant on third parties’ and detailed how the company is seeking to address that.
He added: “During this quarter, we deployed our own player account management system and promotion engine, which gives us flexibility that we didn’t have before, being able to deal with our customers and make this bespoke offering with respect to the sports betting and the same way we did with our sports media business.
“It’s going to be a competitive landscape and when you layer on top of that the fact that we’re going to be integrating and migrating a complete in-house risk and trading, we’re in a position where we own this thing from soup to nuts.”
