Genius Sports CEO Defends $1.2bn Legend Acquisition to Shareholders

Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke has written to shareholders defending the sports betting data supplier’s decision to acquire sports and gaming media network Legend for $1.2 billion (£890 million).

Legend monetises sports audiences through a scaled media network. In 2025, Legend generated 320 million annual visits from 118 million unique visitors, with more than two thirds returning on a regular basis. Its brands include Covers.com, Casino.org and Casino Guru. The business was previously known as iTech Media.

The deal was announced on February 5, and was followed by a negative market reaction. Following the announcement of the agreement, Genius’ share price dropped from $8.54 to $6.19; the share price at the time of writing is $6.28.

A staunch defence

Locke, who co-founded Genius in 2000, has defended the decision to enter the deal in an open letter, arguing the technology Legend provides will be useful to Genius’ future plans. He said: “Legend is not simply a media business. It is a technology company built around large, loyal sports and iGaming audiences.

“The real value is the technology and behavioural intelligence that powers how that audience participates. Legend's systems capture how users engage in real-time. These are not static information pages. They are environments built for participation around live sport and gaming experiences.”

Absence of ‘affiliate’

In the press release announcing the deal, Genius omitted the word ‘affiliate’ when describing Legend. Locke attempted to explain this by arguing this is too simplistic a term to summarise Legend’s offering. “The term has been applied as shorthand, without distinguishing between low-quality traffic brokers and technology platforms built on owned audiences and behavioural intelligence,” Locke said.

“Booking.com earns commissions on travel revenue. No one would call it a simple affiliate business because it clearly owns consistent demand. The principle is the same here. The question is not the revenue model, it is whether we own the audience, the data and the participation layer. We do.

“Viewed through a traditional affiliate framework, the focus remains on publisher risk and performance marketing multiples. Viewed through an infrastructure lens, the focus shifts to control of intent, first-party data and integrated distribution.”

Other points of contention regarding the deal included the valuation of Legend at $1.2 billion and concerns that the use of artificial intelligence could have an impact on the long-term future of Legend’s brands.

Locke said: “We are paying just over six times pre-earnout EBITDA for a business with global scale, strong cash flow and its own proprietary ad-tech stack and audience data built on over 20 years and $300 million investment in technology and advanced data modelling purpose built for sports and gaming. AI makes this more valuable, not less. LLMs [large language models] commoditise information retrieval.”

Assessing Locke’s argument

It is not surprising Locke has felt the need to make such a staunch defence of the deal to buy Legend, as the decrease in Genius’ share price was alarming, and Locke has a duty of care to shareholders, which includes explaining such a large investment which has confused industry observers.

Regardless of Locke’s defence of Genius’ decision not to explicitly refer to Legend as an affiliate, it is impossible to deny Legend’s business model has been shaped in the same way that other gambling affiliate brands such as Gambling.com and Oddschecker have monetised their brands; taking a commission from referrals to iGaming operators.

Locke has though made some strong arguments as to how Legend can provide value for Genius, with the customer data Legend can provide potentially providing a high degree of market intelligence which can benefit Genius as a sports betting data supplier.