SBJ Tech: How external pressures shaped Q1 for 3 firms

I’ve found myself collecting records lately.

I’ll take stereotypical hobbies of a mid-30s male for $1,000, Alex.

Music has been a steady fixture in my life. I love it, and when I’m not on calls or in a focused writing state, I’m listening (most likely to a shuffle of NPR Tiny Desk concerts). And my taste is really wide-ranging.

Case in point: My first two vinyl purchases were “3 Feet High and Rising” by De La Soul and “Renewal” by Billy Strings. Give me some album recs if you have them.

Also, we’re now less than two weeks away from SBJ Tech Week. Be sure to join us!

This is a big earnings week in the sports industry, with many companies sharing their Q1 2026 results.

Interestingly enough, on the tech side, three companies are each dealing with what I’ll call “external pressures” that are most definitely impacting their businesses now and potentially in the future. Let’s run through the most interesting takeaways from Live Nation (which filed late Tuesday) and Sportradar (last week), while putting a spotlight on Genius Sports as it is set to release its latest filings Thursday morning.

Live Nation

The external pressure: The continued legal proceedings associated with its federal and state antitrust case and recent verdict.

Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have operated as an illegal monopoly, according to the federal grand jury that ruled in favor of the 30-plus states. That decision, which came April 15, has now spawned a remedies phase that will start later this month.

While the ruling hasn’t caught up to Live Nation’s revenue — its $3.8 billion in Q1 is a 12% year-over-year increase — the trial’s consequences show in the company’s operating losses. The company racked up $450 million in expenses from government investigations and litigations, which led to an operational loss of $370.5 million. That number will surely be added to in Q2, with the remedies process of the antitrust lawsuit ongoing.

That gave investors little pause: Live Nation shares were up to $10.56 in the 24 hours since its filing, closing Wednesday at $167.82 a share. The company’s adjusted operating income (a figure that eliminates non-recurring sums of money like legal costs) was $371 million this quarter, up 9% YoY. Revenue in concerts, ticketing (via Ticketmaster) and sponsorship and advertising were all up as well.

On the earnings call Tuesday evening, Live Nation President/CFO Joe Berchtold explained that the company is still waiting on decisions to have a clearer picture of the outcome. The remedies phase could result in more potential damages paid or a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

“There’s three key elements here,” Berchtold said. “One is we have a few motions that we made as it related to some of the evidence and how that proceeds, so we need a ruling on that. Two is the judge determining the process for the review of the settlement with the Department of Justice. And then third is the remedies portion of the trial that just concluded.

“So, we have views on how we think it should proceed, but the judge will decide that, and then that will define the timing and the exact pieces. So until then, we just have to wait a minute and see how he lays it out.”

Sportradar

The external pressure: Reports of connections to 270-plus unlicensed betting companies late last month.

Sportradar, which operates at a global level with deals across the NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS and too many others to highlight, already addressed the report, saying it only works “with licensed operators, follows strict global compliance and due diligence standards.” But that report resulted in a 28% drop in stock price. Share prices stabilized there, and as of market close Wednesday, they sat at $13.36.

The company reported an 11% YoY increase in revenue, coming in at just over $407 million. It had an operating loss of $7 million, which it attributed to a foreign currency loss of $9 million related to the value of the dollar.

Highlights from Sportradar’s quarter include hiring Sameer Deen as its CCO from Miami-based Entain, expanding its deal with Hard Rock Bet and adding the PGA Tour and UFC to its data and in-play betting offerings.

Genius Sports

The external pressure: The reaction to the company’s acquisition of the media network Legend for $1.2 billion.

This move, which officially closed last week, was not one that investors liked at all. Post-acquisition life for Genius Sports has seen its stock fall below $5 (it started the year over $11). The Q1 report will be the first reflecting this move and prompting commentary from leadership.

There’s a lot of intrigue in what Thursday may reveal, especially when its earnings call takes place. Stay tuned.

Venky Harinarayan felt his Major League Cricket team had to compete with a disadvantage.

He’s a successful tech entrepreneur and co-owner of the San Francisco Unicorns, a franchise without a link to a larger Indian Premier League club (four MLC teams have a connection with an IPL counterpart, three of which come at the ownership level). “We started with a pretty big gap, if you will,” Harinarayan said.

The Unicorns have muscled their way through early learnings, coming in fifth during the league’s debut season in 2023, with back-to-back playoff appearances (and a 2024 title-game berth). And they’ve done so with a little help from AI.

Sports franchises produce steady examples of new business ventures emerging from initial in-house efforts — think data firm 601 Analytics from the Heat organization, fellow insights provider KAGR from the Kraft Group, or RightsHelper from the Dodgers. And while the Unicorns’ own deployment — called Unicorns.AI, which is a great combo of two different things with mystical powers — is still in its early days, even if it’s helping the team in several areas.

Cameron White, the Unicorns’ coach, said the system informs much of what the club does:

• It takes information about the grounds to determine what might impact play (like if the pitch conditions are leaning toward a style of bowler).
• Providing player evaluation, like strengths and weaknesses, for Unicorns players and opponents. That in-game analysis can inform decisions that lead to success and wins.
• Talent evaluation, so that the Unicorns can scout players in lower levels.

Harinarayan and his Unicorns’ co-owner, Anand Rajaraman, are longtime tech execs, having founded Junglee Corp. in 1996. Amazon went on to acquire that firm, with Rajaraman becoming director of technology at then-Amazon.com and Harinarayan as the company’s general manager. Harinarayan said that Rajaraman was the initial person who suggested doubling down on AI and tech efforts after the club’s first season. The creation came from the Unicorns’ biggest strength: its home in the Bay Area, an AI development hotbed.

It’s academic

Despite its emerging status in the U.S., cricket is a massive sport, with a significant following in regions such as South Asia. That international reach is what ultimately powered this AI development. A 2024 study from the National Science Board estimated that 19% of STEM workers in the U.S. are from abroad, and for doctorate-level scientists and engineers, that figure is 43%. So the Unicorns’ own backyard featured plenty of high-level minds who were also fans who wanted to be around the game.

“We had three or four guys — all Ph.Ds from Stanford who were working in all the big tech companies here who literally were volunteering their time just for the opportunity to work on this,” Harinarayan said. “And you rarely get people of this caliber to work in sports as a full-time sort of gig. ... What we found very quickly was these guys were not just making us competitive; they were actually pushing the envelope of analytics and cricket.”

Unicorns.AI has gained more intrigue in the larger cricketing community thanks to the evangelization from Unicorns players like Australian captain Pat Cummins, who played with the franchise in 2024 and saw the firsthand benefits.

While it’s too soon for Harinarayan to say that Unicorns.AI could become a SaaS offering for others to use (the model has increasingly become more sophisticated over the last couple of seasons, he added), he also recognizes how much AI continues to foster many more insights for the wider sports community.

“The best, simplest way for us to think about it is right now [is] you have two entities: You’ve got the GM, and you’ve got the coach,” Harinarayan said. “If you look out five years ahead, you’re going to have the GM, the coach, and the AI.”

• Genius Sports signed a multiyear deal with Liga MX, providing a suite of technology that will touch advertising, broadcasting, coaching and officiating for the league and its 18 teams.
• SBJ’s Austin Karp writes about Nielsen’s pilot program in February aimed at improving measurement around co-viewing of big events, with the results showing a 4.19% lift to Big Data viewership.
• Premier League club Aston Villa reached a sponsorship deal with Sports Illustrated Tickets. The 12-year agreement, which includes both physical and digital fan activations, makes the company the club’s “official fan experience” sponsor starting with the 2026-27 season.
• The USTA signed Oura to a wide-ranging sponsorship that designates the wearable tech provider as the “official wearable fitness device” of both the U.S. Open and USTA Coaching for the next five years, my SBJ colleague Rob Schaefer reports.
• Harbinger Sports Partners, the private equity firm that recently closed the first $466 million of its debut fund, is close to making its first franchise investment in one of what it calls the “big three” leagues: MLB, NBA and NFL. Read more from my SBJ colleague Joe Lemire.
• Lemire also writes that the SEC is introducing its own version of the automated ball-strike challenge system on experimental basis for every game at the SEC baseball tournament in Hoover, Ala., beginning May 19.
• Schaefer also notes that AI-powered legal services platform Harvey AI continued its recent spree of sports sponsorship deals by signing the Valkyries, Warriors and Liberty to multiyear pacts.
• Betterguards, a maker of advanced ankle braces, acquired the IP of Nextiles (one of SBJ Tech’s Most Innovative companies in 2023), a smart fabric firm, to advance the understanding of injury prevention, notes Lemire.