Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Genius Sports Q1 Results 2021 Conference Call. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode and afterwards there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Today, I am pleased to present Mark Locke, CEO and Nick Taylor, CFO. Please go ahead with your call.

Good morning, everyone. Before we begin, we'd like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our historical results or from our forecasts. We assume no responsibility for updating forward-looking statements. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements in our earnings release and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC, including our last annual report on Form 20-F. During the call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures that we believe may be useful in evaluating Genius's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for Genius's financial results prepared in accordance with US GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable US GAAP measures is available in our earnings press release and earnings presentation, which can be found on our website at investor.geniussports.com. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mark Locke.

Good morning. Thanks for joining. And welcome to our first earnings call as a public company. I want to start by extending my gratitude to everyone who's contributed to this moment, to our clients, customers, advisors, investors, and of course, our employees. We thank you. You all believe in our core mission of being the official data, technology partner that powers the global ecosystem that connects sports, betting and media. You have enabled us to get to this point. And I'm looking forward to using these quarterly earnings to update you on our business activities and progress towards our long-term targets. And to new potential investors, welcome and thank you for joining us today. Before diving into the results, I'd like to start with a brief overview of our business and the opportunity ahead of us. Genius is uniquely positioned at the heart of the sports ecosystem that connects sports, betting and media. Over our long history, we built a proprietary technology platform that our partners depend on to streamline data collection and distribution, engage audiences and ultimately monetize sports fans. By partnering with hundreds of sports leagues and federations, sportsbook operators and media brands across the globe, we are well positioned to capitalize on the growth in the sports betting market. While our fast growing sports betting market presents the best opportunity to monetize sports fans today, our vision stems far beyond the boundaries of sports betting alone. As the world of sports, betting and media converge over the long term, we are focused on building a tech platform that enables our partners to monetize their audience in a multitude of ways tomorrow, whether through betting, ticketing, merchandising or others. Our deeply integrated technology and data partnerships puts us in the best position to expand our value added services…

Thanks, Mark. And thank you all for joining us on our first earnings call. We're delighted to start life as a public company with such growth great momentum across the business. Quarter one group revenue increased 52% year-on-year to $53.7 million, with each segment of our business increasing significantly. The company delivered well balanced performance across all segmental areas and all growth leaders. Firstly, our Betting Technology, Content and Services revenue increased 42% year-on-year to $39 million. This growth was driven by a combination of underlying growth in the betting markets, new customer acquisition, price escalators in existing contracts, as well as increasing our share of wallet through additional services to sportsbooks. The major technology Content and Services revenue more than doubled year-on-year, growth to $9.4 million in Q1. This increase was driven by continued growth in advertising spend in the US and Europe from sportsbook looking to acquire and reactivate customers. Lastly, the Sports Technology and Services revenue increased 42% to $5.4 million, primarily driven by expanded services provided to existing sports league and federation customers across all tiers of sport. Group adjusted EBITDA also grew over 400% year-over-year to $9.3 million. The result of our inherently strong operating leverage and disciplined cost control, which allows our robust revenue growth to drop through to adjusted EBITDA. On the back of our strong underlying business performance and recent announcements, we are delighted to increase our full year 2021 revenue guidance from the $190 million communicated to you at time of our de-SPAC [ph] to a new range of $250 million to $260 million. The key drivers for this increase, our underlying strong Q1 performance, with the well balanced revenue across all segments, as well as our continued growth in our official right portfolio. As of March 31, we have more…

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from the line of Jed Kelly with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hey, great. Thanks for taking my questions. And congratulations on getting to your first earnings call. So I guess just Mark, just touching on the NFL, because that seems to be where, where a lot of the focus is. And one thing that's been interesting is since your deal, the NFL has signed sponsorships with three major sportsbooks. And they've also given the rights holders a lot of flexibility on their streaming rights. So can you talk about how your - how you can benefit, how Genius benefits from more content going streaming? And some of the - you know, I think we've seen with Amazon potentially on in two years, could put a betting cast on some of their Thursday Night rights. So can you talk about how you're leveraging the streaming opportunity with the NFL?

Sure. So I mean, I'll talk more generally. And our view is very much that the world of streaming and sports betting and frankly fan engagement are all converging over time. So part of the logic around the Second Spectrum acquisition was really to sort of take a long term view on how this works and how this comes together. When we look at our streaming strategies, as you know, we've built up a reasonably large portfolio of streaming rights. And as the industry continues to evolve and continues to grow, we're looking at putting those streaming rights together with a lot of the product innovations that are coming through on the betting side to offer that technology service and that to the sports betting operators on a long term basis. The other part of it, is really around customer acquisition, fan engagement, whereby the convergence of this allows us access to a lot of the data, that means that we can put the targeted offerings in front of them, and really drive value for the sports Betway [ph]

And then as a follow up, I guess, just on the back of the FanDuel access, do you eventually see more of your media opportunity around connected TV, OTT advertising? And or is it going to be more in performance marketing?

Yeah. I mean, look, we - when we think about all of the different platforms, what we're really thinking about is the underlying data, that sort of sits underneath dollar [ph] And think about audience data, we think about how can we better target using the various different platforms that are out there. So as a business, you know, we very much think about providing technology services to analyze and optimize the use of the underlying data. And as the industry evolves, as different platforms sort of emerge, we'll be focused on serving those platforms, again, using sort of - you know, intelligent processing of the underlying data.

Yeah. Hi, Jed. I'm Jack Davidson, Chief Commercial Officer. I just thought it was worth jumping in. So thinking about the NFL stuff really, like your question about Amazon and the kind of that convergence going forward, a really good one, because although we could not - right out of that content, what we are, as part of the innovation hub with the NFL is kind of an enabler of that convergence. So even - and that's something which will come as the future, and as that - as the NFL to other partners think about that convergence and what they're doing, we are intending to be part of that. And our innovation hub is really about joining the dots from a technology point of view, to kind of further enable that convergence. Even with the sports betting partnerships that the NFL announced, we are an enabler of that. We're providing technology to the NFL to really help those partnerships flourish, to help them succeed. So we're already doing that in some ways. But when you think about the likes of Amazon, and what they're thinking about, and the direction that could go, that's really the future and really one of the sort of key drivers of the partnership. So does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Very helpful. And then I guess, just one more for me, it's more for Nick. Hey, Nick, can you help us how we should think of your cost of revenue growing relative to your cap - cash operating expenses for your EBITDA range? And then on the revenue you gained from the acquisitions, was that on a full [ph] year run rate basis? Or is that what they're expected to contribute going forward, starting in 2Q?

Yeah. Hey, Jed. Let me take those the - sort of reverse way around and talk about acquisitions first, and then I'll touch on the operation leverage that we have. So in the decks that we've given in the guidance, where we've guided to a $10 million to $15 million acquisition position, that is their contribution to the 2021 perspective and not their annualized position. We're expecting both acquisitions to close in quarter two, although they haven't as yet closed. In terms of an annualized basis, in the previous comments, I said, Second Spectrum, we're expecting on a standalone basis, pre any revenue synergies to contribute $20 million to $25 million worth of revenues, and FanHub to contribute to circa around $7 million worth of revenue. On a cost question Jed, I guess, to look at it, two ways. Obviously, we've given a - you can see our 2021 EBITDA margin is obviously given as part of our guidance that we've gone forward with. Can you still hear me Jed?

Yeah, can hear you fine.

Yeah, sorry, we have some strange music at this end. So apologies, have been put off that. So we've obviously got our EBITDA margin in the 2021 numbers, you can see from our updated guidance, and clearly the rights are playing a big impact of that, and they'll have a direct impact on our gross margin perspective. We're not giving guidance for 2022 just yet, as you'd anticipate, but what I can say is that we are reaffirming our long term position of a 40% EBITDA margin at a mature steady state position. And therefore we would anticipate, I think in the deck of our de-SPAC deck, I gave a view of what sort of right direct costs and net staff costs and SG&A are likely to be as a position to reach that 40% position and that hasn't changed yet on a long term, steady state position.

Thank you

The next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Congrats on the results and business trends and awards. First, thank you for the detailed guidance reconciliation that is very helpful, how you broke that out. Within or I guess on the NFL deal, which line is that include in within the EBITDA guidance reconciliation? Is it the underlying business? Or is there some elements within the investments there?

Yeah. Hey, Ron. Yeah, let's – we're absolutely clear, the NFL is in our core numbers, in our underlying business. So its part of the $50 million to $55 million upgrade on the revenue and part of the zero to $10 million on the adjusted EBITDA position. Those investments that I called out separately are - frankly, because of our new balance sheet strength and our flexibility, because of that, we're going to take the opportunity, and that’s principally around streaming rights. So nothing to do with the NFL, that we're going to take an opportunistic ability to invest really ahead of the curve. So we're going to get the cost, but they'll make a meaningful revenue contribution and payback over the next three to five years. But we'll be contributing significantly in 2021. The reason why I would call them out separately is obviously they weren't part of our de-SPAC guidance at the 190 and the 35. So we wanted to give you an ability to compare on a like-for-like basis.

Helpful. And then on the guide, and you can talk directionally, I know it's hard to kind of bifurcate the two out. But are you able to talk, so EBITDA on the underlying business raised x the NFL, and then the inclusion of the NFL? I guess what I'm asking is, is the NFL expected to be positive contributor this year?

Yeah. Hi, Ryan. Well, as you know, first of all, that's not how we go to market. And secondly, obviously, for commercial sensitivity reasons, I am not going to give too much details on the NFL. What I can say to you, is that on a cash basis we anticipate the NFL to be breakeven in 2021, and cash generating thereafter. And indeed, on a - of course, the life of the contract we anticipated to be profitable.

Excellent. Competitor Sportradar, which lost the NFL deal, they have said publicly to their customers that they plan to still distribute publicly available NFL data to their clients. I guess, how do you parse out what is exclusive versus what others can do? And then how are those conversations with the key sportsbooks going kind of relative to switching over to you guys?

Yeah. I mean, we - look - the conversations we're having with the sportsbooks are in early days. And I mean, I can just give you a bit of a flavor for how some of the conversations are going on if you'd like.

Yeah.

Hi, Ryan. We're quite early on that. And we've always anticipated that Sportradar will and others, I guess we'll be offering an unofficial product from the NFL, that's something we expect. I think that the market is such that there's a real demand for operators to work with official data wherever they can, in fact, the NFL partners, the three partners that have been named have actually have an obligation to use the official data as part of that. But I think it's worth going back a bit a step on this stuff where, you know, we are on a commercial level, we're not going to sportsbook operators and saying, do you want to buy some official data from us, what we're talking to them about is really helping them with their entire kind of customer journey of how they engage their players with the NFL. And that starts from how do they acquire a player using the NFL assets, how do they - we engage with that player, how do we use things like free-to-play in order to drive their engagement and drive their retention metric, as well as user streaming in their - for their international markets, as well as the kind of core thing which is, I guess, what you're getting out about using official [ph] data to drive their betting market. So from our point of view, we're quite early on in those conversations, but the response has been fantastic. So for us, this isn't really about worrying about whether other parties in the market are going to offer an unofficial product because there's so much more to what we're able to offer an operator as part of the deal. That's really we tried to highlight on this call. So I hope that makes sense.

Yeah. I mean, is it useful for us to sort of give it - go slightly more granular on exactly what the deal is with the NFL is as well because, we sort of, we heard lots of different reports about what's included in it. And a lot of people, you know, have reported that it's a sort of almost a direct swap for the incumbent. But actually, if you break down what we've actually done with the NFL, it's really sort of falls into four buckets. I mean, the first is, you know, simply everyone very clearly understand the inclusion of the official game data. The second is official data for media purposes, it gives us the ability to build up products around the media space. The third is around international streaming, for betting, so for the rights to do that. But the important part of this deal which is unique and it's something that we work very hard with the NFL to create a structure, create a deal that added a lot of value to the NFL, but also work very well with the products and the services that we offer, as a business is really around the Ad Tech space. And what we have there is an additional - effectively an additional part and an additional revenue. So when we're going to market as, as Nick alluded to earlier, and Jack just said, again, we're not going with just a sort of sale of NFL data, the conversations don't work like that. We go to our sportsbook partners and we say look, we can add value with the NFL in lots of different ways, but we can also add value across other sports. But on top of that, you know, what we can do is we can help them reach their customers better, we can engage with them on the marketing side. So we're looking at - you know, forgive the word, that we were looking for much more sort of holistic deals with our sportsbook partners that really allow us to access different parts of budget within each of those operators, hopefully, driving a lot of value for them in return for doing so, and having much larger relationships. So it's a much - it's a very different type of deal, then I think it's sort of more widely reported. But it does give us an access to sort of much larger revenue, Paul [ph]

Very helpful. Just as a follow up on that Mark, anyway to kind of bifurcate the expected revenue across each of those four buckets, or said differently, kind of which of those are the most valuable, the sports betting has historically been, you know, the biggest part of your revenue mix. But how do you think about this deal specifically?

I'm sure, it'll be no surprise that I don't want to go into too much detail about that, because it's fairly commercially sensitive. And again, I don't think I'm giving away too much by sort of saying, look, I think from a revenue point of view, sports betting is clearly very important. But so is the, you know, the advertising the Ad Tech market. As you'll have heard on the earnings earlier, that business is growing incredibly well, with the acquisitions we've made that help support that growth, and we're adding a lot of value to our customers in that way. So I think that's probably where I'll leave it on that.

Great. Nice job, guys. Good luck.

The next question comes to line of Mike Hickey with Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Hey, Mark, Nick, Brian [ph] and congrats, guys. Awesome job on the quarter, first quarter and congrats on the NFL deal. You touched on it, but I guess it was sort of a big surprise, at least for us that you got this deal. It was for radar was sort of the incumbent that seemed like they're pretty tight. There's some equity involved. So just sort of curious, and I know you've sort of hit on this, but what was it that really got you to win this deal? And how sticky is it now with you moving forward? I realize it's a six year deal, but maybe it's for fixed with a couple year, one year option. So just curious, the longevity of the deal? And then have a follow up? Thanks, guys.

Yeah, sure. So I mean, look, we work very hard with the NFL to create a structure that allowed us, you know, as I said before, to, you know, utilize a lot of the technology assets that we have as a business. But I think really where I think the NFL and us had a very similar vision, about what the future look like, what the requirements for products in the future are I mean, again, you'll know from the work, you've done already, that we're very focused on product, we're very focused on delivering value to our customers and our partners. And really, I think the NFL when they were evaluating that they did an awful lot of work on it, you know, realize that the amount of opportunity and the fact that our visions, I guess, we're very much aligned. So I think that the in tech - and technology innovation center is an incredibly exciting and important part of this partnership. It gives us the ability to build out new and exciting cutting-edge, next-generation technology, help the NFL to access that next-generation of fan and to engage them and really gives us a platform for what we're expecting to be an extremely long term partnership. We believe that this is a foundational deal. It's transformational, what's not been done before in the market, and really its giving us that opportunity to build that very long term partnership with the NFL through providing those technology services and providing that partnership.

Nice. Glad to hear that you sort of reiterated on your long term financial goals. Just curious how the NFL deal sort of accelerates, maybe the bridge to that long term view? And, part of the puzzle was originally your assumption 40% share of events, powered by Genius. Is that the same assumption that changed? And I guess, you know, does the NFL accelerate your opportunity to that long term goal?

Yeah. That's exactly right. We believe it does accelerate our journey to that long term goal, I'll steal your words. And really, as you know, our business is about, you know, it's about being able to provide multiple services to our partners, it's about leverage, it's about having that availability for our customers. So yeah, we have reaffirmed our long term financials and we believe that this does accelerate us towards them. It provides us with, you know, that platform for that growth.

Nice. Last question for me, you have your, I think, a 10 year exclusive at the NCAA, just sort of any thoughts around the possibilities and them sort of endorsing data for sports betting? Obviously, there's a lot of betting already happening around collegiate sports. But do you think that relationship with the NCAA can evolve to a official data endorsement from them? Thank you.

Look, I mean, probably no surprise, I can't comment on what the NCAA view on betting is, on a long term basis. Suffice to say that we do have a very close relationship with them. We're providing a lot of services. We've rolled out our LiveStats with data collection technology in huge numbers of their events. And, you know, I think I mentioned it in the call that you'll see the Genius Sports logo on the back of the CBS broadcast from the NCAA. So I think we're feeling like we have a good relationship. We've got those technology partnerships in place. We've rolled out our technology and again, how the NCAA choose from a betting space it isn't for me to comment on.

All right. Thanks, guys. Best of luck.

The next question comes from line of Stephen Grambling with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, it's Steven. Thanks for taking the questions. I'm going to throw one more on the NFL in there, as you look at some of the past marquee league signings you've had perhaps in Europe, how do of these contracts, you know, typically translate or ramp, as you look at the revenue and cash ramp over the contract terms, and what might make the NFL similar or different than that roadmap in other markets?

Yeah. Look, I mean, like, the way we have structured our partnerships on a - I guess outside of the US is always been generally around technology partnerships with sports leagues. So our core business model is about swapping, or contouring [ph] technology in exchange for the right to collect data and we provide those services on a very, very, very wide ranging basis, to many global sports leagues. The NFL is - you know, while the quantum is different, the theory behind our partnerships, and the relationships remain the same. We as a business, look to partner with sport. We look to take those services and products and provide them to our partners in exchange for the right. Now, clearly, there's some cash elements in – and of the equity involved in the NFL, but we believe that this deal is, you know, on a cash basis it's breakeven in ‘21, it's going to be profitable over the life of the contract. And as a result of the type of relationship that we have, we believe it accelerates our sort of global growth. So we see it very much in the same vein. We see most of our sport partnerships.

Yeah, I guess, what I was trying to get out without trying to get too specific with guidance was just as you look at these other signings, I imagine that, you have a conversation with customers, there's both the opportunity for having more events within the contract that you have. And then also adjusting your existing contracts and having these new services that are attached with it. So just trying to think through how quickly we can start seeing those? It sounds like, you know, you'll be having those conversations in advance of this upcoming NFL season. But perhaps is that normally like a one to two year three year ramp up? Or could this just be faster, because it's either larger or just the way it's structured?

Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure I totally follow the question, but if you're asking how we see the ramp, I mean, our revenues are related to and the growth in the market, as well. I mean, our business model is, you know, consists of sort of two different parts. One is a fixed part, which is for the provision of the services, and then we also, as I'm sure you're aware, take a slice of the gaming revenue. So we sort of see the ramp to achieve the 5% that we've stated to the market, really coming as a result of increased partnerships, increased provision of content, increased utilization, and obviously an increase in the size of the market as well.

Yeah. Hi, Steven. Its Nick. And the other important thing to know is that in every contract with our sportsbook customers, we have upside leaders, regardless of what the nature of that contract looks like, whether that's on a variable basis, or whether that's on a sort of fixed basis, we have the ability to go back to the sportsbooks, where we acquire material assets like the NFL. And therefore, we will expect to be monetizing the NFL immediately in season one, but as Mark says, and then ultimately, obviously, the TAM will grow as the natural US focus TAM growth across the six years.

That's helpful. And one other one, that's maybe a longer term question. You talked about the long term EBITDA targets, I guess, what would - what is the long term cash conversion from EBITDA look like? Effectively, I know that you've got limited CapEx requirements. But you generally think about software investments as being relatively fixed as well, and that long term assumption?

Yeah, that's right. We don't have a - we capitalize a certain level of internally generated software. I think it was round about, top of my head, round about $10 million to $15 million in 2020. So - and going forward, it's not going to ramp in any way linear to any revenue or EBITDA performance, it will stay to relative absolute number as we continue to develop new products. So the cash conversion on any EBITDA perspective will be pretty strong.

Awesome. Thanks so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. Thank you for your attention. The conference is now concluded and you may now disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Good bye.