By Matthew Cantor and Lily Fagin
Since the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports betting in Murphy v. NCAA,[1] the industry has exploded. And one type of sports betting—in-game betting, has seen particularly rapid growth. Within the next five years, revenue from in-game bets is projected to triple to more than $14 billion, matching revenue from all types of sports betting over the last year.[2]
In-game betting allows spectators to bet on granular statistics like how many yards a player will run, how many free throws a player will make, or how many minutes it will take for a player to score a goal. Because the odds for these in-game bets change during game play, often updating from one second to the next, getting real-time, “live” data is paramount. The faster and more accurate the data, the more valuable it becomes for oddsmakers, betting platforms, and fans seeking instantaneous wagering opportunities. Of particular importance is low-latency data that is generated live from sporting events and can be transmitted to betting platforms before the next play is televised.
Sports leagues are seeking to capitalize on the value of this real-time data by asserting ownership over it and limiting others’ access to it. But leagues’ ability to claim ownership over this data is dubious, and the limited precedents on this subject have rejected claims that game data is a league’s intellectual property. The current state of play, where leagues have placed significant restrictions on other parties’ access to the fastest and best data sources, may raise competitive concerns.
The Legal Landscape: Facts, Not Copyright
At the heart of the data debate lies a fundamental principle of U.S. copyright law: facts are not copyrightable. In NBA v. Motorola, Inc., the NBA sued over the SportsTrax device, a pager that transmitted game updates every couple of minutes, with a 2–3-minute latency period.[3] The District Court dismissed the NBA’s copyright infringement claims, and the Second Circuit affirmed, finding sports data were facts, not original works of authorship, and therefore not copyrightable.[4] The Second Circuit reversed the District Court’s ruling in favor of the NBA on its state law “hot news” misappropriation claim,[5] finding SportsTrax was not free riding on any comparable NBA product.[6]
NBA v. Motorola set out an extremely narrow set of circumstances when a sports league can legally claim ownership over game data, and even then, left open only a claim under New York law, as opposed to the Copyright Act.
Nevertheless, leagues and their data partners have sought to monetize access to official, real-time statistics. Through licensing deals with exclusive licensors, they effectively control who receives “official” data and at what price.
This tension is now emerging in litigation although, thus far, only a narrow set of competition claims have been asserted. In 2023, PANDA Interactive, a sports streaming and betting technology company, filed patent infringement suits against Genius Sports and Sportradar, two sports data providers who each hold exclusive data contracts with major professional sports leagues. Last year, PANDA amended its complaint to add antitrust claims, alleging that the defendants have used their exclusive data rights to force sports books to purchase additional software.[7]
PANDA’s complaint includes allegations that Genius and Sportradar hold exclusive licenses with sports leagues. Sportsbooks, betting technology firms, and media partners that rely on rapid, reliable information are effectively locked into dealing with league-sanctioned data providers. This can cause inflated prices and a narrowing of innovation, as competitors are denied the raw materials needed to build alternative technologies.
The Broader Implications for Sports Data and Betting
The PANDA litigation should provide some insight into how courts will apply the antitrust laws to sports data, but it is just the beginning of the story. PANDA did not assert antitrust claims related to the exclusive licensing agreements that have become the industry norm.
Key questions remain unanswered, including whether the sports leagues—and the economically independent teams within them—have violated the antitrust laws through their licensing regimes. Not only do the long-term exclusive data licenses mentioned in PANDA’s complaint have the potential to stifle competition, but sports leagues may not even have a basis in intellectual property law for forcing consumers to purchase licenses to access data in the first place. In-game sports betting shows no signs of slowing down, and with billions of dollars on the line, it is crucial to ensure fair competition by opening up acce
[1] Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 584 U.S. 453 (2018)
[2] Jenny Vrentas, “Sports Betting Apps Have a Powerful New Tool to Keep Users Gambling,” New York Times, Sep. 30, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/business/live-in-game-sports-betting.html?smid=em-share Sports Betting Apps Have a Powerful New Tool to Keep Users Gambling.
[3] Nat’l Basketball Ass’n v. Motorola, 105 F.3d 841, 843–44 (2d Cir. 1997).
[4] Id. at 846.
[5] See Int’l News Serv. v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215, 242 (1918) (holding that INS misappropriated AP’s property by lifting breaking news reported by the AP and republishing under INS’s name).
[6] Nat’l Basketball Ass’n v. Motorola, 105 F.3d at 854.
[7] SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive) v. Sportsradar Group, AG, and Sportradar AG, No. 2:23-cv-00472-JRG (E.D. Tex.); SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive) v. Genius Sports Ltd., et al, No. 2:23-cv-00471-JRG (E.D. Tex.); SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive) v. Genius Sports Ltd., et al, No. 1:2025-mc-91403 (D. Mass).
