DraftKings is expanding to offer livestreams of sports.

Since COVID-19 brought sports around the world to a standstill, there just hasn’t been as many sports betting options. With none of the typical sports available to bet on, a big chunk of gamblers took the spring off.

That’s been the reality around the entire county, including Indiana. In April, the Hoosier State posted a record-low $26 million handle. May’s numbers will be released on June 10, and they’ll probably tell a similar story.

With the betting volume so low, sportsbooks have had some extra downtime to get creative. DraftKings used that time to put together this new streaming deal.

Sportradar teams up with DraftKings

For DraftKings, this deal is all about enhancing the live-betting experience.

Being able to offer live and dynamic odds over the course of a game gives bettors more options to enjoy the sports that they love. However, it’s a difficult thing to pull off since there are so many moving parts.

That’s where Sportradar comes in.

Sportradar provides live data and other information to its clients. The company’s US subsidiary is the official data provider of leagues like the NBA, NFL, and NHL.

While DraftKings provides the platform for betting and streaming, Sportradar will give the sportsbook the data to do so. Sportradar will send DraftKings live information to help with things like in-game odds.

The goal here is to make things as simple as possible for bettors. Because of that, the livestreams of games will be available within the DraftKings app.

At least for now, the streams will cover games from the Korea Baseball Organization and Bundesliga.

However, they won’t always be the only options. DraftKings has over 100 different leagues on its platform, and it will be looking to expand to stream as many of them as possible once the COVID-19 situation blows over.

That’s a huge win for DraftKings bettors. Ezra Kucharz, DraftKings’ chief business officer, says that the company is always looking to push new ideas.

“With a focus on innovation, we are excited to further enhance our product offering to include a convenient, state-of-the-art experience through live entertainment. At this difficult time for sports fans across the nation, we have extended our partnership with Sportradar to bring customers the best in-app experience from the safety and comfort of their homes, and closer to the games and players they love.”

FanDuel is still a step ahead of DraftKings

As much as this deal is about expansion for DraftKings, it’s also about countering its chief rival, FanDuel.

FanDuel signed a similar partnership with Sportradar back in April 2019.

Since then, the sportsbook has streamed plenty of tennis and soccer games but hasn’t ventured much into other sports.

When it comes to live sports, streaming rights are expensive and hard to come by. Sportradar can provide data on live games, but it doesn’t matter much if DraftKings and FanDuel can’t get their hands on the rights to stream them in the first place.

Since the process is a tricky one, FanDuel has been using its streaming advantage to strike deals with other companies.

One of those deals took place with IMG Arena only a few months ago.

IMG Arena owns the rights to stream select NHL games. Now that the company is partners with FanDuel, the sportsbook can livestream those same games on its app.

German soccer is a great start, but if DraftKings wants to livestream sports that US bettors really care about, it will have to cut deals to acquire those streaming rights.

Partnerships with companies like IMG Arena are the exact types of moves we can expect both FanDuel and DraftKings to continue making.