The data everyone quotes by name
Opta is the product-and-data brand; Stats Perform is the operating company behind it, owned by Vista Equity Partners (with DAZN Group retaining a minority stake from the 2019 merger). Opta Index was founded in 1996 and became the Premier League's official stats provider in 1997–98; Stats Perform itself was formed in 2019 from the merger of STATS LLC and Perform Group's data arm. The business covers more than 500,000 matches and 3,900 competitions a year.
The company runs as two stacked layers: a low-glamour, high-moat pipe of official-data collection and betting feeds, and a brand-and-AI storytelling layer — Opta Analyst, the “supercomputer” predictions, Opta Vision, OptaAI — that does the marketing work but is not where most revenue sits. It is one of the big three of sports data, alongside Genius Sports and Sportradar, and the competition has hardened into a contract-by-contract rights auction.
Rights, products, and position
How the business actually functions
The moat is the unglamorous layer. Official-data collection, betting feeds and the RunningBall live-data arm are where the FIFA, La Liga and other rights sit, and where most revenue is generated; the supercomputer and OptaAI do the brand work. Under Vista, the strategy reads as classic software value creation — consolidate, attach AI features to defend pricing, and walk away from rights deals that don't clear a margin bar, even at reputational cost, as the abrupt Serie A exit showed.
The competitive frame has hardened into a three-way auction rather than a structural monopoly. Winning FIFA while losing the European Leagues Association to Genius in the same cycle demonstrates that the official-data moat is now contestable contract by contract. The IMG litigation, and the broader question of observed versus officially licensed data, is a live risk to the cost basis of the firm's data collection.
Direction in 2026
The 2026 posture is to lock up exclusive official betting-data and streaming rights — capped by the landmark FIFA deal — while pushing generative-AI products such as OptaAI Studio and Opta Vision up the value chain to defend pricing. Whether those AI tools can be monetised as standalone products, or remain sales-enablement for the core feeds, is the open commercial question.
The corporate overhang is ownership. At more than six years post-merger, a Vista sale or recapitalisation is plausible; who buys, and at what multiple given the cyclicality of betting rights, will shape the next chapter. The firm's actual revenue and EBITDA — and how much rides on betting feeds versus media and performance — remain undisclosed.
- FIFA and Stats Perform releases (betting-data distributor, Jan 2026)
- Stats Perform leadership and product pages; Stats Perform Wikipedia
- SportBusiness (Serie A exit); InsiderSport (Genius / European Leagues)
- CNN, BBC (supercomputer coverage)
- Caveat: revenue is not disclosed; the ~$590m figure is a third-party estimate