Genius Sports (NYSE: GENI) has finalised its acquisition of Legend, the global digital sports and gaming media network, completing a 1.2 billion dollar deal that positions the London-based, NYSE-listed data company as the only business in the world operating simultaneously across official sports data, media, and advertising at scale. The deal, first announced in February 2026, closed this week ahead of the company’s earnings call scheduled for Thursday.
The transaction structure involved 900 million dollars paid at closing, comprising 800 million in cash and 100 million in stock, with an additional earn-out of up to 300 million dollars spread across two years post-closing.
Genius funded the acquisition through an 850 million dollar Term B loan issuance. The company says the deal is immediately accretive to adjusted EBITDA margins and free cash flow conversion, which will be closely watched metrics when management speaks to investors this week.
Legend’s scale is substantial. The network recorded approximately 320 million annual visits from 118 million unique users in 2025 across a portfolio of properties that includes Covers.com, Casino.org, and Casino Guru, three of the most established names in sports betting and iGaming media. That reach gives Genius a direct audience channel that integrates with its existing data infrastructure serving over 1,000 sports organisations including the NFL, Premier League, and DraftKings.
CEO Mark Locke framed the deal in strategic terms that go beyond simple revenue aggregation. “Genius Sports has spent years building the data infrastructure behind modern sport. With Legend, we now extend that into the moment where fans choose to participate and act,” he said. The company’s updated guidance for 2026 targets approximately 1.1 billion dollars in group revenue and between 320 and 330 million dollars in adjusted EBITDA, with a longer-term target of 1.6 billion dollars in revenue by 2028 representing a compound annual growth rate of around 21%.
The acquisition reflects a broader consolidation trend in the iGaming data and media space, where the ability to own both the data pipeline and the fan-facing media properties that carry that data is increasingly seen as a structural advantage over pure-play data providers or pure-play media businesses operating independently.
