Adrian Ford, general manager of Football DataCo, has taken a firm public stance against the scraping of official sports data, calling the practice equivalent to theft.
Football DataCo is a jointly owned licensing arm established by the Premier League, the English Football League, and the Scottish Professional Football League to manage data and intellectual property rights.
Ford made his comments speaking to NEXT.io, following a failed legislative attempt to make data piracy a criminal offence under UK law.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Foster tabled amendments to the Sporting Events Bill that would have criminalised the taking of sports data, but those amendments were ultimately unsuccessful.
Ford described the threat in stark terms, saying: “Unofficial data can be created from any part of the world and technically savvy businesses can scrape data – the equivalent to theft – from users of official data.”
He added that unofficial data can be generated in jurisdictions offering weaker intellectual property protections, making the process significantly harder to stop or police effectively.
Data piracy remains a globally emerging issue with limited legal precedent, as courts in many countries have repeatedly concluded that raw data itself is not copyrightable.
Organisations seeking to protect their data rights have therefore been forced to pursue alternative strategies, including enhancing proprietary data or taking legal action against scraping operations directly.
Ford described Football DataCo’s commercial role clearly, saying it exists to “deliver the official record of the Leagues, create compelling data content to promote the Leagues and drive commercial revenue from official data from the media and betting markets.”
He warned that unofficial data vendors undercut the market by offering an “inferior service at a significantly reduced price,” which he said reduces revenue potential and creates a serious integrity risk for sport.
Ford also called for mandatory use of official data, arguing it would provide consumer protections while ensuring sports rightsholders “benefit from the revenues associated with official data.”
Football DataCo and data giant Sportradar were previously embroiled in legal disputes following Football DataCo’s decision to grant an exclusive licence to rival firm Genius Sports, a conflict that was eventually settled in 2022.
The ongoing challenge of data piracy in sports betting markets means the issue is unlikely to disappear, and Football DataCo appears determined to press for stronger enforcement mechanisms going forward.
