BETBAZAR: Esports Content Marketplace for the Long Haul

The esports betting industry has a range of suppliers and content providers, each with their own specificities, offerings and range of data available. In an era where official data and products can be starkly different between providers, accessing a marketplace where operators can pick and choose what they need is increasingly valuable.

In his latest thought leadership piece, Betbazar Chief Operating Officer Max Sevostianov explains how to choose the right products to offer in a marketplace environment, and what operators should seek out when considering marketplace solutions for their esports vertical.
One of the great advantages of exploring options via a content marketplace is the capacity to pick and choose what you want. The same goes for the marketplace provider itself. Any marketplace offering worth its salt makes decisions on what content to offer according to several key factors:

• A strategic assessment of market needs in the current environment
• Current and future capacity for technological innovation
• A genuinely unique value proposition.

Choosing the right products and content to offer

Part of that strategic assessment is, of course, assessing product-market fit, which jurisdictions could this content fit, and what kinds of operators benefit most from a given type of content.

Track record is an excellent way to measure the value of a specific content type offered on a marketplace – it assists with measuring reliability as a revenue generator, particularly when applying it in new jurisdictions or operator offerings.

Stability in the product brings with it room to innovate and improve on what works, and a sign that there’s plenty of room to grow and expand the audience. It also offers the content provider, marketplace, and operator maximum levels of transparency and collaboration – from development and audience engagement to understanding how a given product can provide additional value now, and over time.

Additionally, the product needs to have that novelty factor. It needs to be genuinely different and something that you can’t get anywhere else, or feed a specific niche or interest. FIFA esports content is available on the Betbazar marketplace and during COVID, it was a gem for our partners; now, you see lots of companies offering different kinds of FIFA products.

As an operator, you must identify marketplace providers that are more than just aggregators of content. Considering the expectations of Millenial and new generation audiences – to have content and experiences tailored specifically to them – this kind of approach likely won’t last in the long run.

What operators should look for with a marketplace provider

A sportsbook operator might want a specific type of product and be happy with the commercials, but the primary concern for the business when considering something new is integration.

Aligning the integration of a new product with your product roadmap is a challenge across the whole industry, there are bottlenecking concerns which is why operators are incredibly careful about what they add and when they add it.

A sound marketplace provider can smoothen out some of the bumps in the integration road from both a technical and collaboration perspective. This ranges from being a reliable and helpful conduit between the content provider and operator or offering a simple technical solution for accessing the content to taking on a consultative role to ensure the operator is getting everything they need.

At Betbazar, we analyse the needs of our clients deeply before proposing solutions so we can get a full understanding of their current offering, what we can offer and how it adds additional value for them. Particularly for new products, it’s about ensuring that operators understand that adding new content doesn’t open you up to cannibalisation risks, instead, it opens additional revenue streams.

We do this through demonstrations and trials of our products, offering operators access to product performance analytics so they can see for themselves, and make informed, data-driven decisions.

This approach applies to how we work with content providers as well, offering insights to them on which products are the most interesting, and how they can improve their existing content to cover operator needs and help them understand and improve key performance factors for clients.

Crucially, any solution needs to have a commercial agreement that is structured with flexibility, scalability and mutual benefit at its core. This includes performance-based elements, equitable pricing models and revenue share incentives for innovation and growth so that all parties have a vested interest in the success of the product.

Operators should seek out marketplace providers that champion this approach, such as Betbazar. It encourages continuous innovation and improvement, and accountability for all stakeholders involved in scaling their businesses, ultimately serving the long-term interests of a sustainable, healthy online betting ecosystem.