{"id":2870,"date":"2026-05-22T13:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T13:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/?p=2870"},"modified":"2026-05-22T13:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T13:06:12","slug":"everybody-has-a-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/bettingjobs-earningsandmore-partnership\/everybody-has-a-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybody has a plan\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I came across a fallen tree:<\/strong> Three months on from the announcement of the $1.2bn acquisition of Legend, which lopped over a quarter off the company\u2019s market cap, Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said the \u201cferocity\u201d of the share price reaction was a surprise.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Speaking to <em>E+M<\/em> for an upcoming Q1 \u2018Earnings Debrief\u2019, Locke said that, as with all M&amp;A announcements, the company had expected a \u2013 relatively small \u2013 negative reaction.<\/li>\n<li><strong>I felt the earth beneath my feet:<\/strong> But <a href=\"https:\/\/earningsandmore.substack.com\/p\/media-buy\">on the day of the announcement<\/a>, the share price fell 28%, a reaction which Locke claimed was unwarranted.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDid we expect it to go down a bit? Yes. But the ferocity of the reaction was more of a surprise to me,\u201d he disclosed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Oh, simple thing, where have you gone:<\/strong> Locke said poor reception of the news was partly due to factors outside the company\u2019s control, adding it was a \u201cbad day for the markets\u201d generally. But he also admitted to some errors, including assuming too much prior knowledge of the Legend business, which itself had deliberately flown under the radar before it was sold.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cNobody knew what it was,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cYou\u2019ve got Genius, which is a complicated business, buying a big business relative to our size, which is also quite complicated.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAnd it\u2019s a business no one\u2019s ever heard of. So, it\u2019s a perfect storm.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Something to rely on:<\/strong> In place of any equity-market endorsement, Locke said he takes heart from the debt-raise process against the backdrop of a very difficult spring in the debt markets.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe secured the money with US Bank, Goldman, Deutsche, Citizens and several other banks on incredibly good terms.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe banks did the same due diligence work on Legend as we did and came to the same conclusion we did. That is a massive validation.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>So tell me when you\u2019re gonna let me in:<\/strong> A further boost came this week after a note from the analysts at Benchmark gave the share price a 20%-plus boost on the suggestion that Genius Sports is set to benefit from recent developments with prediction markets.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Notably, the analyst is seeing the early signs of engagement between prediction market operators and sports leagues.<\/li>\n<li>As an important official data provider, Genius Sports could be set to benefit given its \u201centrenched\u201d relationship with leagues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Talk about it somewhere only we know?<\/strong> Locke remained cautious in his words around prediction markets, saying the NFL and what it says about integrity and insider trading will ultimately set the tone.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe next stage will probably be increased demand for official sports data for the PM operators \u2013 trust is everything and official data is a key part of establishing trust,\u201d he added.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIt won\u2019t be the NFL until they are happy, but we are already seeing that with other sports.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Moreover, he said the PM operators understand that for their long-term survival, the support of the leagues is vital.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cUltimately, I believe what they need is for their business to become more regulated,\u201d he argued.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>I knew the pathway like the back of my hand:<\/strong> Genius\u2019 commercial engagement with the larger prediction market operators is already underway, however. The Polymarket\/Serie A deal flagged by Benchmark \u2013 with Genius as the official data and integrity provider \u2013 is the visible tip of a wider relationship being built.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe work with the market makers, who all need good data. We\u2019re already making good money in that market,\u201d Locke said.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe\u2019re understanding how it\u2019s working, we work with them on the advertising and the tech side. That\u2019s working really nicely.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe\u2019ve been careful not to move too fast in what is a complicated environment in the US, and that is an overhang on our stock for sure. But I believe it will start to come, and likely soon.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sat by the river and it made me complete:<\/strong> The work of repairing the damage done by the Legend announcement began with the Q1 earnings, which showed revenues up 31% YoY to $188m while adj. EBITDA rose by 21% to $24m.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More importantly, the company gave guidance for pro forma annualized revenues of ~$1bn and adj, EBITDA of $320m-$330m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Is this the place we used to love?<\/strong> Post-call, Locke said the lessons learned about public life are starting to sink in, adding that \u201cnaively\u201d he underestimated the amount of time investors are able to give to understanding the situation with any given stock in their portfolios.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe business combination adds a layer of complexity to the public equity story we have been telling for five years now, particularly given Legend was relatively unknown to public market investors,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cUltimately, we think this will be a \u2018show-me story\u2019 as we execute and deliver financial results that will force investors to pay attention \u2013 but certainly in the first few months post-acquisition, we have seen investor time horizons shorten against the backdrop of a hyper-volatile market.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/earningsandmore.substack.com\/p\/everybody-has-a-plan\">Like what you have read? Click here to see the FULL article!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came across a fallen tree: Three months on from the announcement of the $1.2bn acquisition of Legend, which lopped over a quarter off the company\u2019s market cap, Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said the \u201cferocity\u201d of the share price reaction was a surprise. Speaking to E+M for an upcoming Q1 \u2018Earnings Debrief\u2019, Locke said&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bettingjobs-earningsandmore-partnership"],"acf":[],"post_author_name":"","post_authors_type":"","post_authors_from_team_members":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}