Genius Sports completes Legend acquisition at $900 million

Genius Sports (NYSE: GENI), the self-described “operating system of modern sport,” has completed its acquisition of Legend, the digital sports and gaming media network, owner and operator of such properties as Covers.com, Casino.org and Casino Guru.

The announcement, in February, valued the deal at up to $1.2 billion, with $900 million payable at closing and an earnout of up to $300 million. According to Genius’s earnings call for Q1 2026, on May 7, integration is underway and should prove accretive. The company has raised its adjusted EBITDA margin projection from 23 to 28 percent.

Group adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was up 21.3 percent year-on-year to $24.0 million on revenues that were up 30.5 percent to $187.9 million. Income for the quarter was a negative $55.5 million after the previous year’s loss of $8.2 million. Post-acquisition the group is projecting annual revenues of $990 million to $1.01 billion and annual adjusted EBITDA of $270 to $280 million.

Genius says the acquisition of Legend has made it “the only company operating two synergistic businesses across official sports data, and media and advertising.” For CEO Mark Locke the company is extending the data infrastructure it has built over the years “into the moment where fans choose to participate and act.”

Genius has in fact just launched what it calls the Moment Engine, which, as Locke describes in the earnings call, “identifies when fan engagement is likely to peak, not just from the scoreboard, but from momentum shifts, comebacks and the kind of high-impact moments where customer attention is most valuable to advertisers. […] That signal, the connection between the moment, the fan and the response is what advertisers pay for. What differentiates us is the combination of data and identity. Our FANHub:ID graph, 250 million consumers, combined with Legends [sic] intent signals drive better targeting and higher yields. The result is enabling advertisers to target high-intent audiences in real time, which drives higher yields and increased spend over time that translates directly into high-margin media revenue.”

Legend describes itself as using its 20 years of experience and team of more than 800 “industry experts” to “build loyal fanbases” through sports betting. It offers “advantage-boosting tools,” data on sports and odds, sports-betting gamification, sports data feeds, picks and tipping platforms, and “dynamic newsroom services.” It claims to be the number-one company in North America in its market, but it is unclear what that market is.

FanDuel (40%) holds the plurality among North American sportsbooks, with DraftKings (35%) following on its heels. Not itself a sportsbook, Legend appears to deal in the back end of sports data, as an affiliate and media network. In 2025, according to Genius, Legend generated 320 million annual visits from 118 million unique visitors, more than two-thirds of whom returned regularly.

Legend has ten hubs, in places like Malta, London, Bratislava and North America. It is registered in Jersey, a dependency of the British crown, whose legal system blends Norman customary law, statute law passed by the States Assembly and, here and there, extended UK law. Jersey is outside both the EU and the UK and thus unbound by their gaming regulations.

Genius, meanwhile, is incorporated in the UK and maintains dual headquarters, in London and New York. It has three product categories: Perform (Performance Analysis, AI Officiating, League Software, Integrity Services), Bet (Data & Odds APIs, Trading Services, BetVision) and Engage (FANHub, Augmentation, Sports Data API). And it has four customer segments: sports leagues, brands, sportsbooks and content owners. The firm has partnerships with leagues, teams, sportsbooks, brands and broadcasters – among them the NFL, the English Premier League, the NCAA, DraftKings, FanDuel, bet365, Coca-Cola, EA Sports, CBS, NBC and ESPN.