SportRadar, Athletes Unlimited Join Forces

• Athletes Unlimited, an up-and-coming professional sports governing body, has reached a multi-year deal with SportRadar Integrity Services.
• SportRadar will provide education on match-fixing and other topics, utilize their Universal Fraud Detection System to monitor bets, as well as to conduct audits and intelligence services.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Athletes Unlimited, a groundbreaking professional sports governing body that focuses on offering a player-centric and fan-centric on-field product, announced Thursday that they have reached a multi-year integrity services partnership with SportRadar Integrity Services.

SportRadar To Provide Integrity Services

According to a statement released by SportRadar, the company will be providing a variety of services to the rapidly-growing league. The first of these is vital to a smaller league in the age of proliferation of legal online sportsbooks: bet monitoring.

The company says it will use its Universal Fraud Detection System to protect the integrity of the league while allowing a close proximity to sports betting.

SportRadar will also provide education and prevention services on topics such as match fixing, conduct an integrity audit, and engage in ongoing intelligence services to identify and assess potential integrity issues.

Deal Expands SportRadar’s Reach

With the new agreement, SportRadar will now be providing integrity services for basketball, soccer, tennis, and golf events as well as the events hosted by Athletes Unlimited.

“By choosing Sportradar as its integrity partner, Athletes Unlimited is taking a critical and proactive step in safeguarding its brand and business, as its competitions continue to grow and attract more interest from fans,” said Jill Exley, North American Integrity Partnership Director for SportRadar, in the company’s statement.

 

“We look forward to supporting them with our industry-leading integrity products and services and being a part of their exciting journey as they revolutionize how women’s professional sports are organized and experienced by fans,” said Exley.

What Is Athletes Unlimited?

Launching in March of 2020, Athletes Unlimited describe themselves as “a network of next-generation professional sports leagues.” So far, they offer softball, volleyball, basketball, and lacrosse – they plan to add more sports in the near future.

They attempt to differentiate themselves from the already-established professional sports giants such as the NBA by focusing on providing unique, player-centric alterations to scoring and presentation; for example, in their volleyball league, the winner is not determined by the amount of sets won but by the total amount of points scored – the league says this makes games winnable to the final whistle, keeping fans involved.

The basketball league is even more player-centric – athletes have control over the league rules, hold equity in the league, and are free to recruit other players who are not currently involved in the league. Each week, the top four performers are placed as captains, who then draft a team for the week – this means there are no set rosters.

Athletes Unlimited takes the fan experience seriously as well. Each game concludes with a fan vote of the top three performers, with the year-end MVP award determined by these votes. Individual statistics are also tracked using a unique scoring system. They have also committed to providing top-rate legal sports betting opportunities: Caesars Sportsbook, for example, is already offering betting odds on both individual games and the overall individual statistical leaderboard.

 

News tags: Athletes Unlimited | Caesars Sportsbook | Jill Exley | NBA | Sportradar Integrity Services | Universal Fraud Detection System