Great. Good morning, everyone. I am Bernie McTernan, the Internet and Consumer Tech Analyst here at Needham & Company. My pleasure to introduce Gerard Griffin, CFO of Sportradar. Thanks so much for spending some time with us this morning. Thanks, Bernie. It's great, great to be here- Great, and- on the Zoom. There we go. And so I have a bunch of questions to get through, but as always, if anyone has any questions, please type them into the portal. We'll be sure to get to them. But maybe just to start, keep, you know, start this high level. Been at the job for a little bit over six months, just what attracted you to this opportunity? You know, any parallels to your former employer with Zynga? Yeah, love to start there. Yeah, I think what initially attracted me to Sportradar, 'cause obviously, after leaving Zynga, I took some time off to recharge the batteries, was actually Carsten and the team. Really talented, smart group of people, and in chatting with Carsten, you know, his vision and how he saw, you know, sports betting and just the overall leverage of technology and data into sports evolving over the years was interesting. You know, from a company point of view, the company's been around 20 years, and it's been profitable, but I could also see that, there was a unique opportunity to up the game in terms of operating leverage and profitability. It's good that the company was profitable, but when you look at its position in the space and the opportunity for growth in the future, it was obvious to me that I could add a lot of value, you know, working with Carsten and the team at focusing in on that area. I'm not a sports betting expert. I'm coming up to speed very quick on the industry but, you know, for me, coming from an entertainment background, this company looked like it was uniquely positioned for an exciting future, and that's what really got me going. Commonality with Zynga, I have had to get my head around gaming, 'cause my gaming historically has been the computer gaming type and mobile gaming. I would say the commonality is, back to where I started: smart people. They're focused on data and analytics to drive, you know, performance for clients, very similar to how we used to think about game development and user acquisition. Zynga was a turnaround. I don't see Sportradar as a turnaround. I see it as a company that just needs to really focus in on where the real opportunities are and drive, you know, stronger flow-throughs, which I know it's capable of. Yeah, that's what got me in the door, and it's been an interesting ride ever since. Great. And then, you know, so with 2024 being your first full year in the seat, what are some of the key strategic priorities for you? You know, gonna be very simple and focused. Operating leverage is probably gonna be said a lot in terms of how I can inflect influence in the organization. As I say, we've got a very talented product, content, commercial teams. My focus will be very much on making sure that all of that good effort is actually flowing through at a good clip both in 2024 and beyond, as I've said in our previous earnings call. Next will be the capital markets and investor relations. We need to put a lot more effort into making sure that the story of the company is understood. As you know, Bernie, it can get complicated in terms of this space, but it doesn't need to be. And so I really want to spend a lot more time with the investors, both on the buy side and the analysts on the sell side, to really educate on how we think about the industry and how we see growth for the future, 'cause I think that's important. You know, the metrics speak for themselves in terms of what we're delivering, but I think the long-term potential of the company needs to be a lot more amplified with the capital markets, from my point of view. And finally, just obviously from a team perspective, I've got a very strong team here at Sportradar from a finance point of view, but I'm gonna be continually looking to enhance their capabilities, both from a business partnering point of view and, obviously, hope to announce very soon that we have a new head of investor relations in the building that can help me with my priority number two. Well, maybe on the priority number two, what do you think is the largest disconnect that investors are kind of missing from the story, or is it really just they think it's too complex, and it's really just simplifying it down? I think the way we present is overly complex. The whole segment structure needs to be revisited, mainly because, you know, we look at the company from a global perspective. If you look at the organizational structure of the company, we've got Nick, who's our head of content. We've got Warren, who's head of product. You know, when you look at our management structure, it's... We take a global perspective. I appreciate that investors are very focused on the U.S. as an emerging market, but that's exactly what the U.S. is, an emerging market. It's, you know, 17 to growing probably to 20% of the overall market for us and for everybody, and it's an important part. It's a growth part. But, you know, when you look at the company, it's a global company with a highly profitable rest-of-world business, which we actually see as the base of the business, and we're adding in, you know, the North America and other emerging markets like Brazil, et cetera, over the coming years. So from that point of view, I want to simplify how we explain the company. You know, another analyst once said to me, "Gerard, you know, people just need to simply understand that this is a company that's been growing revenue in the 20s, historically, hasn't been generating the operating leverage that you would expect from a company of its performance level—but if you look at how we're positioning in 2024, and if you think about that into 2025 and 2026, we are positioning ourselves for a meaningful expansion of margins over the coming years on the basis that we will continue to grow our revenues, which we believe we will. So from that point of view, when I look at where we are today, I, I think we've got a very valuable company, but we do need to articulate a lot clearer the growth drivers, both from a top line and make sure people understand that, you know, the way we look at the middle of the P&L, whether it's our people costs, other operating expenses, our, our sports rights, all of those lines are, are, are being very finely managed. And, you know, as long as we continue to do that, we have the ability to have a stronger flow-through, coming out of 2024 into 2025 and beyond. Great. Well, maybe, maybe now is the right time to hit on that 2024 guidance. So what's the best way for us to think about kind of the moving pieces in order to get to that 20% revenue growth? I mean, for us, we assume rest of world betting continues to decel, but U.S. is going to accelerate with the NBA. But, you know, is that the right way to think about it or anything else to add? What I would say from a top-line perspective, the NBA and the ATP deals will absolutely be contributors to growth in 2024. They're obviously the main contributor to pressure on operating leverage as well from a Sports Rights point of view. That's actually more acute than the revenue growth we'll see in 2024, but they are a major part of that. The other major elements to state, you know, just the recurring nature of our revenue base, we have the ability to have, you know, contractual growth, plus what I would say just more cost-of-living growth into our overall revenue base. Plus, you have... You know, outside of the ATP and the NBA, we are focused on driving, you know, deeper data, deeper premium offerings into our, our client base that will also help with, you know, delivering at least 20% growth. In terms of the rest of world, I would not characterize that as decelerating. It, it's still going to be a meaningful growth driver, in absolute terms, absolutely, 'cause it's the largest part of our business. Right. On a percentage basis, yes, the U.S. will be a stronger growth dynamic, but from an absolute point of view, and even on a percentage basis, you know, growth in rest of world will be strong. Interesting. So if we think about that- Sorry, Brian, just to double down on that. Yeah. One of the reasons is, you know, 40% of the NBA business is international, and the ATP is a global deal as well. So it, it's interesting, when I think about those deals, I think about their ability to drive growth across our global footprint. Obviously, they have- like, the NBA is going to have a meaningful impact on the U.S., given the size of the business and the impact of baseball on the business. But when you look at tennis, tennis is as large as, as tennis is larger than, you know, basketball when you think about, you know, the global market. Interesting. Okay, that's interesting. And then, so maybe putting aside different- you know, the added rights, just that rest of world betting, how much of that is, like, market growth versus pricing? You mentioned expanding relationships and getting deeper relationships. So how should we think about kind of what you can control versus what you can't? The majority of the growth that we're looking at is through driving growth off our core base. Yes, we do expect to see, you know, additional client additions in areas like MTS, but, you know, today we service basically all of the major sportsbooks in the world in the markets that we're in currently. So the majority of what we're talking about in terms of growth implied in a 20% growth rate is going to come from our existing core base, and obviously, price increases within that base and upselling within that base, plus, you know, the introduction of some new products that will help drive, you know, more premium pricing and better engagement with our clients. Is that some of the kind of computer vision, AI stuff that you guys have been- Yeah, it's the initial rollout. When I look at 2024, that won't be the most meaningful year for impact of those investments. I think you'll see more of that coming into, you know, 2025 and 2026, but absolutely, you'll see new product offerings definitely around the NBA and the ATP products, 'cause that's where we're obviously indexing strongly with our partnerships there to bring new offerings to light as part of those deals. Understood. And maybe just for the audience, I'd love just to break down maybe some of that, what that new product or technology is. You know, I think it started with table tennis, but I'm sure it's coming to, you know, full-blown tennis as well too. Yeah, no, it's, you know, we're more advanced as it relates to table tennis. That's where we started experimenting in this area, but it will obviously migrate out to the larger, you know, the larger paddle in terms of tennis. And as I say, that's a lot of the investment we're making with the ATP, who, you know, given the structure of that deal, it's more of an active partnership as opposed to us just writing a check in terms of, you know, the fixed sports rights. I would say the even though the NBA deal is a fixed deal, it's also an active partnership on how we drive stronger engagement across their player base and fan base. Got it. Okay. And then, you know, mentioned, you know, focus on margins going forward. You know, cost cutting is going to be a big driver of that in 2024. How would you, you know, just characterize that? Any specific areas that these cuts are happening in? Yeah, I think the, you know, the outcome is cost-cutting. It's also cost avoidance, just to be clear. Okay. You know, one of the things that Carsten and I have been very clear on over the last few earnings calls is that there's nothing sacred. You know, we're challenging all aspects of the business in terms of, you know, from a common sense point of view and from a focus point of view, are we investing our talent in the right places? And so there has been redeployment of resources across our live portfolio and products in development. But that's also resulted in, you know, okay, there's some peripheral products that we're gonna discontinue or we have discontinued. And similarly, there's certain investments that we've scaled back where we felt they weren't really fit for growth. So that'll continue. So, it's when we announced the reduction in force, I know there was some reactions to that, saying, "Oh, there must be something wrong with the company." My view and the view of the company ourselves is that there's nothing wrong with the company other than we absolutely saw that we needed to simplify and streamline the organization, the product portfolio, how we look at ROI on some of our projects, to really just refocus to be what we call more fit for growth. That will continue into 2024 and 2025. We're never... The one thing you want to avoid is to make these a cost-cutting exercise an annual event. I've worked at companies in the past where you get to September and you go, "Oh, we need to do another restructuring." You know, the better approach is to make sure that as you enter a year, you're finely tuning of what you truly need to invest and be careful for those incremental asks that, you know, get to the end of the year and you go, "How did our run rate increase by, you know, 15% when, you know, that's not what we planned to do?" So from my point of view, a key focus of mine, as I said earlier, is to keep an eye on where are we investing? Are there other areas, working with the rest of the team that we can simplify? There are areas, just to be clear, that we are focused on that we feel may not have got as full a review in the work we've done over the last six months. And so, like any high-performing organization, we're gonna continue to challenge ourselves in 2024 and beyond. And, what we've done so far gave us the confidence to be able to say we can grow at least, you know, 20% top to bottom. Because in the absence of that work, one of the outcomes would've been I would've had to say, "Listen, we're gonna see margin pressure in 2024, given the one-time step up from ATP and NBA." Given where we are right now, we feel good that we can cover that, which also positions us well as we come into 2024 and 2025, excuse me, 2025 and 2026. Yeah. And maybe, you know, thinking about 2025 and 2026, I mean, that's the thing: If you guys can keep the 20% top line going for multiple years, I mean, that's, that's one of the best, best growth stories of kind of any you know, any company that we cover. So you know, is that a possibility? What would have to happen, for that to, you know, be a reality? It's still a possibility, and it's where we're focused. You know, the continued growth, there's multiple avenues for growth. Yeah. If I think about the U.S., and we can never totally predict when states are gonna open, we don't believe state openings next year is going to be a meaningful driver of growth. So it's not—there's nothing implied, you know, major, you know, assumption for state openings in 2024. But we still have some very large states that need to come to the table, whether it's the state I'm in right now, Texas, California, Florida. And I think, like, like all castles, they will ultimately, you know, come around to opening up. When we think geographically beyond North America, you've got Brazil. India is a TBD, given what's going on there at the moment. But there's a lot of, what I would say, geographic expansion still on the table, you know, where we can apply what we do very well. As I said earlier, there's a lot of the investment we've put into AI deep data that still hasn't come to fruition, which we'll layer in additional products and offerings that leverage our existing content base in 2025, 2026, and beyond. So when we think about it, there's absolutely the opportunity to deepen our relationships with our existing recurring revenue base and client base and drive more value there. There's absolutely the ability to expand offerings. Even though MTS was a bit of a challenge for us at the end of Q3, it's still a growing business for us as we think about, you know, the out years, and continuing to grow that, plus, obviously, price increases and premium pricing. You know, all of the levers that we're executing against right now still are levers into the out years. The other thing I would say, you know, this year, yes, ATP and NBA are contributing to 2024 growth, but as you think about those deals and the value of that content to us in the out years, they're, they, they are going to be growth, growth drivers from a revenue perspective. And more importantly, the margin profile of those deals in the out years is a lot more accretive to us than it is in the early years, given the, you know, the straight line amortization of the sports rights. So, you know, I, I've joked in the past about Kristen, when she's CFO five years from now, she'll, she'll be a happy camper because she's got a lot of different levers to drive operating leverage. And as long as, you said, we continue to drive, you know, a meaningful growth on, on the out years, that, that margin expansion is compelling. 'Cause it is not our ambition and it's not our mission to drive any of our expense lines at the same level as our revenue growth. So what you should see going into 2025, 2026 is all line items outside of maybe a one-time step change if we did find another materials Sportradar that could truly give us the ROI we need, should be growing at a lower rate than our revenues. So whether it's a 20% growth rate, a 15% growth rate, or a 25% growth rate on the top, you will see operating leverage as long as we continue to manage what should be, you know, decent growth, but not extreme growth on our operating spend. For example, if you look at the historical growth rate of all other operating expenses, it's been in single digits. Can I get people cost there? Maybe not, but, you know, people cost should be in that sort of 10%-15% range. Yeah. Okay. So EBITDA, you know, I was thinking about 2025, 2026 growing ahead in revenue, that makes a lot of sense. And as you talk... Well, a couple of things to double back on that you spoke about. I mean, Texas, any, any guess in terms of when, when it could become legal? You know, there's a few things we don't do at Sportradar: we don't gamble, 'cause that's against our policy, and we don't guess. So I honestly couldn't guess right now. So I'm not gonna try and predict the opening up of the States. I do know California will come around again. There's no reason. The economics for the States make a lot of sense for them to open up. It's just they have to do it at their pace. Yep. Okay. And then just on the NBA, how should investors think about, you know, you talked about that being a revenue driver. Is that—'cause I already thought you guys did, like, most of the NBA betting in the, in the U.S. So is that—are you—so is that true, or are you getting a higher share of NBA, or now you're getting a 100% share of NBA bets? Is this a pricing factor? Like, what's the actual driver here of the revenue growth? Well, 40% of the deal is going to be international, 'cause we have obviously the rights internationally for NBA as well. So it's absolutely, it's premium pricing driven, but it's also building, you know, more compelling offerings with the NBA to engage their fan base, and obviously for our sportsbooks, the sports bettor into these products. So it's a premium offering, and, you know, we're going to drive the product portfolio that way, but it's also, it's a revenue contributor, you know, globally. Anything to share on what the new products are? Sorry? Anything to share on what the new products are? There'll be more coming, as it relates to those offerings, probably through the end of the year, but not on this call. Okay. Understood. And then lastly, just circling back here, just on the U.S., what's the best way for investors to think about where revenue is actually coming from, whether it's betting, media, you know, advertising? I think the main growth driver over the coming years is gonna be the sports betting. You know, as we continue to expand our relationship with the sportsbooks. And over time, we see more in-play evolving within the betting dynamic. As you know, right now, in-play is still fairly small compared to what you see internationally. And while the parlays work very well for the sportsbooks today from a consumer experience, you know, I think consumers are eventually going to demand when the capability is there for more in-play. It's what drives a lot of the activity internationally, and it's high margin, you know, for the sportsbooks, maybe not as high as the, you know, the parlays, given the, you know, the probability of wins, but I think that is coming. On the media side and then our sports services side, we do expect to grow those businesses, but the growth rates on those will be less than what you would expect from our the core of the business, which ultimately will be the betting side of things. Advertising, obviously, is another aspect to our business. You know, from an advertising perspective, that's growing along with the demand from our sportsbooks as they look to acquire into this market, in the U.S., but it's also, you know, it's a growth factor for us internationally as well. Is there any way to think about that split between on advertising, U.S. versus rest of the world and just, you know, how big that business is overall relative, you know, as a contributor to the consolidated financials? The largest element of it is rest of world right now, and that's just because of the size of the marketplace. You know, from the point of view of the business itself, you know, it's grown 30% this year, based on how we report. You know, if you look at it from a on a growth basis, it grew 69%. It's still small, I would say, in the larger scheme of Sportradar. You know, it hasn't reached 10% for our revenues yet, but it's an area - it's an area when I came into the company, I sort of reacted to it. I was surprised that we had our own DSP and SSP, but when once I got to know the business, we have essentially the full capabilities of an ad network embedded within Sportradar, very much focused on the sports sector. But over time, not a primary focus, but as a secondary focus, we could bring that into adjacencies where, you know, brands are still targeting a similar profile from a, from a demographic point of view to the demographic that we're trying to attract for our sportsbooks. So I think there's the opportunity to expand that business over time, outside of its core sports focus, but again, that'll be its primary focus for the foreseeable future. Okay, and then the difference between the gross revenue versus the net revenue, what is that just paying for the traffic? Yeah, no, the programmatic is recognized on a gross basis, and the paid social is recognized net. So it helps on the margin, but it's optically it causes a little bit of confusion when you're looking at gross and net. Okay, understood. Just another, you hit on personnel expenses earlier. Is there any opportunity for automation to be replacing any of these job functions? Just thinking about, you know, collecting the data. I don't know if there's other things that you guys are targeting. Yeah, no, as a practical point, the company has been, you know, invested in leveraging machine learning for a long time. I think, as you think about the future, the data capture is definitely an area where, you know, we can definitely automate over time. I, you know, the reductions you saw us make this year weren't predicated on technology taking over those jobs per se. They were more streamlining and refocusing our efforts on where we felt was the best opportunities for growth. But when you think about it going forward, unfortunately, I don't think, you know, two years from now there'll be an automated version of me speaking to you. So you'll probably still have a CFO, but there is definitely opportunities within the company, on the engineering side as we think about how we code and develop. And I know Sasha, our Chief Technology Officer, working with Warren and Ian on the technology and product side, are looking at how we enhance the capabilities of our products and our development cycle using technology and absolutely the data capture side. Partnering with people like the ATP and NBA, you will see a lot more automation around those areas, and I think that's gonna continue with other partners going forward. The balance you have to tread is you don't wanna over-index into tech, and you end up spending as much money building out tech capabilities as you would using the incumbent approaches. But, it's obvious, based on what we've been doing and where we're going, that there will be more tech leverage in the coming years. Got it. Understood. Mm-hmm. Okay, and so we touched on the, you know, margin expansion going forward. How should investors think about that free cash flow from EBITDA to free cash flow? Well, our objective is to continue to enhance our free cash flow. And, you know, we didn't quote it. You can calculate the number. Year to date, we're at 43%. You know, Q3, we actually were at, based on our internal metrics, which we don't publicly disclose anymore, but, you know, we were at 54% in Q3. You know, the ambition is to get that metric to consistently and sustain above 50%, and, you know, that's where we're focused, and we have a number of initiatives ongoing within the company, to continue to drive a stronger cash flow model. It's also how we think about, you know, any deal that we're looking to do, whether it's a content deal or anything from a commercial point of view, is very much focused on, yes, does it drive stronger top-line contribution? That's important, but more important is, you know, what's the margin and cash flow profile? So again, I would layer that into probably dot two. In other words, operating leverage, cash flow generation, that's the only two areas that, you know, CFO can truly drive a meaningful value on, and, you know, that's where we're focused. Understood, and then now that you're generating all this cash, any plans on what to do with it? Like, any areas that you don't feel like you're strategically complete? Like, it seems like advertising, you think you are, but any other, I don't know, AI investments or anything- Yeah, we're- ... interesting. You know, from a strategic point of view, I think we're uniquely positioned as, you know, in this space to take advantage of opportunities if they arise. You know, when I look at the capital structure of the company, you know, we've got a very strong balance sheet. To your point, we've got strong liquidity. So I am looking at ways to potentially return some of that cash back to shareholders, or do we hold onto it, as, you know, as we look for, you know, potential additions to the company over the coming years? TBD, obviously, I haven't announced anything so, but, as I said, we are assessing a number of options in that area. Obviously, one obvious one would be a buyback, given where the stock is, 'cause obviously we feel we're significantly undervalued. And looking at that and looking at other areas to see how we can improve the liquidity in the stock as well, but that's gonna be more linked into clearly driving the fundamentals and having those fundamentals recognized by the market. Understood. Okay. Well, I know we, we've spent a lot of time talking about the future, but maybe just to hit on Q3 earnings a bit, if you could just talk through some of the puts and takes that impacted the top line in the second half. I know, you know, negative sport outcome was a piece of it, but just, you know, walking through some of those puts and takes. Yeah. The major item was the impact on our MTS business. You know, it's interesting when you think about variability within our revenues. Yes, we have revenue share. The largest part of our revenue share is the U.S. business, but the variability in that business is not as much, mainly because there isn't as much in play in that market. Over time, if we have a U.S. business that goes fully in play, there could be more variability, but that's an opportunity, not a risk from our perspective. Right. But going back to Q3, you know, coming in through the end of the quarter, in September and in October, we saw, and as did the industry, you know, a dynamic where it happens every now and again, the house was giving more money back to its clients. And so the sports bettors- Mm-hmm. The favorites were winning. There were more goals, more time in football games, soccer, as in the real football game. Sorry to say that as a European. But it did impact our clients, and it impacted us from a rev share perspective because we obviously participate in their business. From a practical point of view, you know, we— Sorry, forgot to put phone on mute. As we thought about Q4, we obviously blended that into our Q4 forecast as well, and I also took the opportunity to just take a more measured approach in some of the other variable areas. Like, you will see that we're- we'll have very nice growth in advertising, but I definitely took it down a little bit based on what we're seeing in terms of campaigns coming into the quarter. But that, I would say was the major factor. We did mention FX, but to clarify on the FX, that was more resetting the ranges based on the majority of what I talked about. I already declared in the Q2 earnings in terms of the pressure that the stronger euro was having on our business. So from my point of view, none of the issues that we outlined in terms of reducing our revenue outlook for the full year were structural. They were issues that we needed to deal with from a market point of view as it relates to FX. And then, you know, I think one of the analysts here in Europe said, "Luck isn't structural, but every now and again, you know, the money does go back into the pockets of the sports bettor." And as another wise man said, "That's just money that can come back into the market later." And so, you know, we'll see how it plays out over the rest of the quarter. But so far, November looks fine, and it's in line with our expectations. So from my point of view, it was a learning for me. There is variability in our business. It's not the majority of our business doesn't have this variability, just to be clear. But it, it's something we have to keep an eye on in terms of the MTS business. We did make some structural changes over the course of, you know, the last few months with some of our clients in MTS to make sure we could manage some of that variability. But, you know, participating in our clients' business is a key part of our MTS business, 'cause that's what we deliver is a full value service. And, we do believe that it's gonna still be a growth driver for the company over the coming years. Got it. Okay, and then for the past couple quarters, seems like revenues come in below expectations, but margins have beat. Is there anything, like, structural that's causing that in terms of, like, you know, we talked about the variability of revenue, but is there a variability of expenses, too, that go along with that, or is it just- Yeah, there is- - modeling or whatever it is by us? It's always dangerous for a public CFO to say this, but I'm going there. I would argue, you know, Q1 and Q2, I would argue, revenues came in within our expectations. They were slightly off consensus 'cause we had a slight disconnect, and it wasn't what I would call a material one. Our revenues in Q3 were below our expectations, given what we've already talked to. What I will say is we are managing, and even more so, the operating expenses of the company very, very, very tightly, in the sense of keeping an eye on. And it's not really because of revenue weaknesses. It's more trying to drive stronger operating leverage. I wouldn't say—you know, when I look at Q3, the good news in Q3 is, while MTS was off its numbers, we were able to bring in some of the revenues we were expecting in Q4 from the Taiwan Lottery, the rollout of that deal, in particular, the initial recognition of some perpetual licenses that we've issued to the Taiwan Lottery Company. That helped Q3 because it was a very high-margin revenues offsetting high-margin weakness in MTS. It obviously was part of the reason I then had to take down Q4 because it was a phasing issue. When it comes to operating spend, to your question, though, the most variable spend we have is people cost, and after that, it's, you know, cost of sales from the point of view of, yes, as we lose some of our revenues, we do have cost of sales that come up. But like MTS as an example, that's a higher-margin business, so that you purely... If we weren't managing the spend of the company the way we were, you probably wouldn't have had as much agility in offsetting the weakness of the MTS revenues. But what helped in the quarter was the operating expenses being lower than our expectations, but more importantly, some of this other revenue mix coming in to offset 'cause that flowed through at close to 100%. Understood. Well, Gerard, let's leave it there. Thank you so much for the time this morning. Thanks to everyone who joined on the webcast. Appreciate it, and talk to you soon. Okay, Bernie. Thank you, man.