Great. Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today at the Needham TMT Conference. I am Bernie McTernan, one of the Internet Analysts here at Needham & Company, and my pleasure to once again welcome Genius Sports. We have Nick Taylor, CFO. Nick, thanks for joining us.
Yeah, no worries, buddy. It's nice to see you again.
Yeah. Long time no talk, right?
Always.
Yeah. I guess on that point, you know, one of the views of this conference is that it is coming off so quickly after one Q results. I mean, we even had DraftKings reporting, you know, last night or this morning. We'd love to just get, you know, your key highlights from the results and guidance, and, you know, we'll certainly dive in, but I think that'd be a great starting point.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Thanks, Bernie, for giving us the thing. I know we've had a couple of days of virtual conference. It's been great, as always. Much appreciated for giving us this time. Yeah, we announced our Q1 results on Tuesday, I think it was. A good set of results, buddies, I guess, is what I'd say. You know, 20% revenue growth, EBITDA, you know, 3x growth in EBITDA, strong incremental margins of 53%. I think you mentioned other people's results this week. I think a good one to call out is, you know, betting revenue is up 44% year on year, despite some of the hold headwinds that we've seen in March. I'm sure we might touch on that in the next 40 minutes.
We reaffirmed guidance, Bernie, as well, you know, which is 21% revenue growth, 40% EBITDA growth, and a 20% margin. You know, strong message in this environment. We talked a little bit as well about some key sort of commercial and more strategic points on the call, you know, new NCAA deal that we announced recently, that Betvision for soccer, which is a key building block, and semi-automated offsides for the Premier League as well, which is something we gave a little bit more color around. Plenty to talk about this week.
Yeah, no, that's great. Maybe one of the things that Brandon and team added to the slide deck this quarter, I think it was new, but just that flywheel and showing, you know, connecting, you mentioned that offsides technology, but connecting the offsides technology to BetVision, to FAN Hub. Can you just talk about that flywheel? I think that'd be a nice starting place, you know, for this conversation.
Yeah, cool. I'd love to take credit for it, buddy, but it wasn't my piece of work. But yeah, I mean, it's really talking all about how the sort of sports and betting and media advertising really converges, and that really our technology is at the center of that convergence. If we start at sort of leagues and sports federations, you know, they're using our technology to solve their issues, to solve their problems. Semi-automated offsides is a great example of that. That's allowing us to install our Genius IQ technology in their stadiums. And Genius IQ, as you know, is really one of the only few feasible products, certainly the only feasible product for semi-automated offsides, because it relies on computer vision and AI. Having that technology in the stadium, that allows us to capture this next generational data.
It's that data that then powers the new types of sports betting or new viewer experiences, something like BetVision, for example, that you've heard us talk about, or the old telecasts of live sports that, again, you've heard us talk about. You know, that's a really powerful tool, that BetVision tool, for example, that's driving millions of capturing eyeballs to live sport. That, in turn, is of huge interest to advertisers, and that's where FAN Hub then comes in, because really that's the link for those advertisers into that live sport. Those advertisers themselves, of course, are probably official sponsors of the leagues and federations. That allows them to engage their own audiences. It allows those brands to have more value of those sponsorships, and therefore the value ultimately feeds back into the leagues and sports federations, and round we go again, Bernie.
You can see how we're not just a, you know, sometimes people think, you know, we're just a middleman between leagues and sports books, but you can see we're actually a sort of, I guess, a scale sports software business that touches each part of those ecosystems.
Yeah, like a vertical software provider for like the sports industry is a reasonable way of thinking about it. Yeah. All right, you mentioned one of the key highlights of the quarter was betting technology revenue growing 44% in the quarter. I believe it was driven by rate increases with existing customers. Was that primarily the, I know the U.S. Sports Books was a positive impact there, but was it primarily U.S. Sports Books, or was there, you know, other renewals outside the U.S. that impacted that number as well?
Yeah, I mean, there's lots of tailwinds, Bernie. And again, you and everyone else has heard us talk about that. Absolutely. Price has been one of those tailwinds in the start of, you know, Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. And you're right, we renegotiated a lot of the sports book deals, predominantly in the U.S., in and around the fall. And you can see the benefit of that that's coming through in Q4 and Q1. But you've got all those other tailwinds, you know, the move to in-play sports betting, the hold, additional products that we're serving to sports books. And it's worth saying that although, you know, the U.S. obviously had significantly strong growth, Europe also grew significantly in the year. I think our total betting in Europe was north of 20% as well. So it's a real global play here, Bernie.
Right. As we're, you know, fine-tuning our models for the rest of this year and even to 2026, any renewals that we should be aware of or contemplating as we're thinking about the growth in betting technology revenue?
Yeah, I mean, we said last year, you know, renewals of sports book contracts is our day-to-day bread and butter, really, but we do that all the time. The issue last year was most of the big US sports book deals kind of all happened at the same time. We have staggered those. Now, there are not any significant US sports book deals this year, but, you know, some of them will be two-year deals, so we will start looking at those again for next year. There are one or two European sports book deals, but nothing fundamentally. There is nothing that is existential in terms of our numbers. It is day job stuff, and, you know, we are confident, and indeed, we have shown track record, not just the last two years, but further back about how we are able to monetize those deals.
Right. Okay. Another interesting stat that you guys provided this quarter was just breaking down that betting tech revenue. Saying that revenue from rev share contracts grew 65% in the quarter, and then revenue from minimum guarantees grew 36% in the quarter, both year-on-year numbers. I want to just dive in and make sure I was understanding that right. If we're thinking about the rev share contracts, is that basically U.S. growth, U.S. rate increases, and then Brazil as well? Is that kind of like the right three moving pieces? Any way to size those three buckets in terms of contribution?
It's always difficult to size, but yeah, you're thinking about the right way, Bernie. The majority of that is U.S. What we've done in the contracts for the latest set of contracts that we've done, you almost think of them as a hybrid between kind of rev share and contract minimums, because it's absolutely true that, you know, we will continue to grow up, get upside as GGR growth, as new states come on board, as hold improves, in-play mix continues to improve. You know, we gain from that, but we've protected some of the downside. You can see that really over the last couple of quarters. As I said at the start of the call, you know, sometimes the hold wasn't great in Q4. We're seeing that in March 2025 as well from some of the sportsbooks.
You can see that that hasn't really impacted our numbers. You know, I get the question quite a lot about, you know, do I stay? What keeps me awake at night? What do I stay awake thinking about sports results? I don't. You know, we're so nicely diversified, both from a geographical perspective, from a contract perspective. You know, any particular result that doesn't impact our numbers materially.
Okay. If we're thinking about that rev share piece, you know, on a normalized basis, how fast should we be thinking about that growing? I know you just said that renewals are kind of constantly happening. Maybe thinking about, you know, market growth and how much pricing power you guys have in the market.
Yeah, Brandon, who I know you know, our investor relations manager, always calls it, you know, a sort of GGR plus kind of model is what we should be looking at. You know, we should be growing at GGR, but then ahead of that. Now, at the moment, you're right, price has obviously driven a proportion of that over the last two quarters, and that should always be part of what we're trying to do. This is also about new products. This is also about in-play mix. It's all about all the other tailwinds that are anticipated hold and so on and so forth. We always think about it of looking to be sort of, as I say, GGR plus.
Okay. You should get that trademarked. I mean, this is one, you know, the obligatory question in terms of the macro and consumer, what you're seeing, but just because you're talking about variable and rev share, just anything that there's, you know, anything that you're seeing from the consumer right now or hearing from your sportsbook partners that's telling you there's, you know, how you think OSB is going to hold up here over the next couple of months?
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty resilient, I would say, Bernie, is the answer. You know, as you know, you know, betting is just an entertainment form alongside sport. You know, sport's not going anywhere in any market. There are a lot of data points from previous downturns. If I think go back to, I'm old enough to remember 2009, 2010, U.K., Australia, you know, more mature markets, you know, online sports betting grew significantly even in those downturns. So we're not seeing and don't expect to see any significant consumer pressures in this area.
Okay, understood. As we think about that minimum guarantee bucket, you know, growing 36% year over year, I mean, I'm assuming there's some benefit there from just more dollars being in that bucket from like a US perspective than last year, but just kind of any other puts and takes we should be thinking about it and then how that bucket should be growing in a normalized environment?
Yeah, that's right. I think I just described as sort of the U.S. as sort of hybrid bucket. All the tailwinds that I've described in the rev share, most of them are also applicable to the minimum as well. As I say, obviously, it's not just U.S., it's Europe as well. You know, the regular cadence of renegotiating deals, of upside in any deals, whether that's more events or more product, all feed into that growth of that number.
Okay, understood. Just lastly, to be hammering you on the betting tech numbers, just, you know, 44% growth in Q1. I mean, at least in our model looking at it, we have that as a high watermark for the year in terms of year-over-year growth. Any other puts and takes we should be thinking of as, you know, obviously coming out of earnings? Everyone's really focused on the model right now.
Yeah, I mean, look, we're very, very happy with 44% growth. And indeed, actually, if perhaps the hold had been a little better, you might have, you know, you'd have seen higher than that, certainly for March as well. I mean, the great thing for me, Bernie, is that is an increasingly of a predictable area. You know, we've got really good visibility. We've been relatively conservative about our forecasts around hold, in-play mix, you know, GGR growth for the rest of the year. If they come in better, there's definitely upside. You know, although, as I say, we've taken some of the, we've de-risked some of it by contractual positions, it is still absolutely true that good results for sportsbooks is good results for Genius, and move to in-play, an acceleration of in-play mix in betting is also good news for Genius.
Right. And so I wanted to make sure we touched on that in-play penetration. You know, DraftKings said this morning that now over 50% of their handle is in-play. I mean, obviously, more mature markets in Europe are thought to be 70%-80%. You know, if we think about, you know, maybe a way of asking the question, take it any way you want, just if we think about the 29% growth in betting technology last year, how much of that was driven by a tailwind of in-play betting or just trying to size that kind of penetration of in-play betting and how it's factoring into the segment?
It's absolutely an important part of that, but that growth, Bernie, completely. You know, we've seen really it kind of moved from 25%-30% is our kind of broad estimates in what we can see. And, you know, I've not had a chance to listen to the DraftKings call yet this morning, but, you know, one of the key things we obviously see is the sports books developing better product and merchandising it more. You know, Betvision, you know, is Genius products is a really good example of that. You know, we gave the stat, I think that 76% of all BetVision handle is in-play. You know, we always said it was going to be a product evolution, and I think we've really kind of turned the corner on that now, and clearly you're hearing that a lot more from the sports book operators.
Understood. What, like, you mentioned 25%-30% U.S. in-play betting penetration. In your view, what's the largest obstacle from it getting to, you know, 60%, 70%, 80% over the long term?
It's just time, Bernie. It's time and customer familiarity is what I'd say. You know, this is a natural evolution. You know, we were saying this four years ago. We've seen it in every mature market. It's playing out exactly how we expect it to play out. The timing of how this happens isn't always linear. You know, but we said it was going to be product, and we've seen that. You know, Betvision is creating a unique interface really with how people are watching, engaging in that sort of fully immersive betting experience. That's a really good example, probably the best example out there of that driving in-play sports betting.
Right, right. Understood. Last thing on in-play betting, as we usually, the way I think about it at least is that in-play betting just has a higher take rate. I know under the old contracts, it was kind of like 2% versus 5%. It's probably both of those are probably higher now. Can you just talk about, are you providing additional products as well? Therefore, not only are you benefiting from the higher take rate just from the data you're providing, but then also the higher take rate from actual services as well too.
Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, you're right. The new contracts are structured in a slightly different way, but it's absolutely true. You know, sort of 3x on an in-play sports bet revenue for Genius to a pre-play sports bet. That's broadly still true, Bernie, for all the obvious reasons, as you know, given the fact that our services are absolutely fundamental to power in-play sports betting. Yeah, absolutely. It's a product. You know, we're very focused on providing new products. You know, we talked about it a minute ago. BetVision is really the sort of the key product for that. It's been live for NFL for a couple of years. The functionality of that has changed dramatically over the last two years and will continue to do so. We announced on the earnings call, you know, we're now launching that for soccer.
You know, in the end, NFL is only 276 games. You know, soccer will be thousands of games. Basketball is coming next. These are mass participation sports on a global betting basis. You are going to start seeing that really penetrate the global market.
That is a great transition to the next part. I wanted to make sure we definitely touched on BetVision. Right now we know BetVision is NFL. I guess what are the major soccer leagues that you guys have it for? How should we think about what leagues are going to have it for basketball as well?
Yeah, of course. So you're right. NFL is clearly our flagship product that we've been doing for a couple of years now. You know, I think it's in all major US sports books. I think it's streamed across 13 countries. And we've seen some real success over the last years. You know, I think we've more than doubled the unique streamers year on year. You're using it. And we've got to be slightly careful about, you know, how many we're allowed to say, how much we're allowed to say. But we can tell you that it's millions of eyeballs is what we're looking at here. I said earlier, I think it was 76% of handle was in-play. So that's clearly what we're looking to replicate elsewhere.
You know, from a soccer side, you mentioned, you know, you're looking at French Ligue 1, which is essentially the equivalent in France of the Premier League. You're looking at the Brazilian Serie A. You're looking at Dutch league, Turkish leagues, UEFA Champions League qualifiers, and lots more. You have a lot coming down the track. As you say, basketball, particularly through our FIBA relationship, which is the sort of global umbrella relationship with basketball, is clearly going to be driving the next wave, which we're hoping to launch in the next quarter.
Got it. Remind us just how BetVision's monetized. I believe it's on a take rate basis, but just wanted to make sure we understood, you know, in terms of, I think that's how we always learned that the NFL is a higher take rate for BetVision bets. Is that still the right way of thinking about it given the contract renewals, and then how is it monetized in Europe?
Yeah, I mean, it slightly varies from contract to contract, but sort of had to talk about generalizations, Bernie. I mean, first of all, we actually get paid, and sometimes that's paid on a technology basis. You know, we get paid a fee for providing that technology, which is okay, but that's not the interesting stuff. The interesting stuff, as I say, is what it's driving is in-play sports betting. That in-play sports betting, as I say, we're taking broadly a sort of 3x take in revenue from an in-play bet than we are a pre-play bet. You know, that's really what's got that sort of, I guess the phrase is sort of that compounding effect of BetVision. The other thing that's worth touching on, Bernie, of course, is going forward.
You know, because it is millions of eyeballs on BetVision, the next logical step is monetizing that through advertising. You know, with those eyeballs, you know, that automatically becomes a very attractive destination for brands. You know, it is a highly engaged audience. You know, as I say, there is nobody more engaged than the guy who has got $10 on the next touchdown or whatever it might be. It is a highly engaged audience, you know, who are watching and interacting and betting, for example, with the NFL.
Right. I certainly want to make sure we touch on that, but just last two on BetVision. You touched on this when we hit the flywheel, but I just want to make sure we hit that point home. You know, when you install the BetVision technology in the stadiums, you know, how does that then provide other technology solutions? Like, I think offsides is probably a good example of this, but, you know, basically like using BetVision to get your tentacles in and then like how can you, you know, make sure you're that much more important to the leagues? Like, is that the right way of thinking about it?
That's exactly the way to think about it, Bernie. You're right. I'm going to go back to my flywheel. This is the beauty of Genius IQ, really, is that it's that same technology that's powering BetVision is also powering the broadcast augmentation stuff that we're doing. It's also going to be powering those dynamic advertising. Semi-Automated Offside, as you say, Bernie, is a great example of that. Player tracking, coaching tools, you know, Performance Studio, all of those other tools are all driven from that same Genius IQ technology.
Right. Okay. Maybe this is touching on, and I think it's smaller, but I think this is the first quarter you guys mentioned the 3D Immersive Analysis technology. Is that a media product or is that for the teams just trying to get the sense in terms of who's using that?
Yeah. Do you know what, Bernie? It's a really good example of what we just talked about in terms of that Genius IQ. It's just another user case of the Genius IQ. That specific one, it's a tool for coaches, soccer coaches, and analysts. I mean, what it is, is using the AI technology in the grounds. You've heard us talk about this before. We're capturing hundreds of thousands of data points on a player's body, you know, 100 frames a second or 1,000 frames a second, something, some astronomical number. What that's really doing therefore is enable us to sort of fully digitally recreate the game in real time, but then becomes fully customizable. That particular product is customizable, as I say, for coaches and teams.
You know, in real time, they can instantly look at a pass from the player's angle or look at a save from the goalkeeper's angle or look at it from an overhead angle. That completely sort of kind of transforms the way, I guess, coaches and their teams and their analysts are monitoring the game in real time. It is just a really good user case of that same Genius IQ that is powering all of this tech.
All right. So giving the coach the confidence where he can actually yell at the player now if they missed him or if he could not see him.
Yeah, something like that. Yeah, something like that, Bernie.
I remember, you know, in New York City, there was that tech demo with the Spectrum team, I do not know, two or three years. Time kind of blends together now, I guess. Is that technology coming to life? Because I remember when we spoke about it originally, it was certainly going to be more consumer-facing, and it could be even like the interface that is on how consumers are engaging in sports betting. Like, is this kind of step one in that actually becoming a reality and how the consumer sees it?
Exactly. I would say it is a reality, Bernie. You're right. It's the sort of evolution of that product. You know, Genius IQ is all of these user cases. It's the same user case in a B2B space for semi-automated offsides. That's exactly the same technology that is capturing in real time this significant issue that we're solving for the Premier League. You know, we're a couple of weekends in, and it's been a very successful launch. That example that I just gave you is an example of it, again, from a coach's perspective rather than a league's and federation's perspective.
It's the same technology that, for example, you know, we've just launched recently our first integrated augmented advertising for the Clippers on Clipper Vision with Spectrum Mobile, you know, one of the biggest media buyers, you know, in the US, that is using exactly the same technology that you're seeing as a consumer now, not just as a coach or as a referee or whatever the user case might be.
Okay. While we're talking, I mean, I have a bunch of questions on costs, but I think, you know, as we're talking about advertising, it's probably worthwhile to just, you know, click ahead. Certainly FAN Hub is, you know, I would say over the past six months, it's definitely garnered a lot more investor attention, and we've been fielding a lot more questions. Maybe just to start, if we can talk about the opportunity more broadly, how you see it with FAN Hub, you know, what's your, what's Mark's vision and this rollout and what it can ultimately look like?
Yeah. Look, Bernie, you've spun the market. You've heard Mark talk about it. You know, it is the thing that probably most excites us. That's not to get away from 44% growth in the betting business. It's a really important part of our business, and particularly in the current market. That's very exciting for us as well. Yeah, let's just concentrate on the FAN Hub piece. I guess there's a couple of kind of macro dynamics going on, Bernie, at the moment that I'm sure you're aware of, you know, with ad dollars shifting from linear to digital, sports consumption also shifting. The way, you know, the way my kids are watching sport now is different to the way I watch sport. Goodness knows, 30, 40 years ago, whatever it was. It's now short-form content, alternative experiences, you know, data visualization.
You know, and the key thing now is sport is one of the few things that anyone ever watches live now. For advertisers to be associated with that, you know, that points of key emotion in real time for sport is absolutely fundamental to them. That is really what FAN Hub is all about. FAN Hub really is the platform, self-serve platform that's offering advertisers that opportunity to be part of those moments of key emotion. Now, you know, why Genius? You know, I think Mark, a couple of two earning calls ago, talked exactly this. You know, what gives us the right, you know, to do this? It really comes down to our, I guess what I'd say is our unique understanding of what's happening in the game real time. You know, that's really what we do, is what we spent the last 20 years doing.
It's our first-party audience data that we have is also unique. It's our experience about how those audiences are interacting with the moments in the game. Of course, then, you know, we've got a proven track record of campaign management. If you layer on all of those, there's no other ad tech platform that has that sort of unique capability that's exclusive for sport. That's critical. That's what we're going after, you know, that exclusive sport. Really, for any brand, whether it's, you know, a sports book or a consumer brand or whoever it might be, you know, any brand that wants to reach that sports fan, you know, is going to get a higher return on their ad spend through Genius than through a generalist platform. That's kind of the essence of FANH ub, really.
Just to make sure, I know Genius has a partnership, or I'm not sure what you call it, partnership or agreement with X. Is the thinking that if I'm an advertiser and I want to buy impressions on X, I don't know necessarily if it's, you know, the new Pope being named or the Knicks beat Celtics. If I'm, you know, Budweiser, I probably want to be, you know, I don't know why I'm using Knicks beat Celtics. It ripped my heart out. I want to be associated with the sports stuff and not maybe other news.
Yeah. I mean, that's where our expertise is. It's in sports. It's what we've been doing 20 years. It's what we're doing. And BetVision is a great example. It gives us a really strong view of how people are interacting with sport, that first-party data. And ultimately, that first-party inventory that we're creating, you know, so we can, you know, right now, you know, we get inventory from websites, you know, ad exchanges. You know, we obviously can optimize that bidding for inventory based on our first-party data and real-time data access. We also have access to inventory via the properties that we through our partners, for example, you know, NFL, NFL app, NFL.com. The most interesting thing for us, as I say, is that dynamic inventory that we ourselves are creating through Genius IQ. And you've seen some of those examples through broadcast augmentations.
I just name-checked one where, you know, we were creating on Clipper Vision. We created that inventory, which we then sold to Spectrum Mobile. You know, and that was player tracking, you know, mini maps, three-point trackers, all Spectrum sponsored. You know, if you put that together with what we just talked about in terms of BetVision, which is a natural next step, again, if you go back to that flywheel, you know, with BetVision, and you're talking about tens of thousands of games of sport, you've suddenly got a really interesting and exciting ad tech platform that has access to unique inventory.
Do you need to, for, because I understand there's like the unique part and the stuff that you're buying off exchanges, do you need to strike a bunch of partnerships with different like social networks to get access to that inventory, or can you buy it through third parties? I guess if not, then why was it so important to have that partnership with X or why are they different?
Excellent. On different tool, you know, the reason why people are really using Genius is because we understand the sports time, the slow sports fans. We understand that real-time events in a game. You know, we're bringing that fan preference, that interaction, that knowledge that we've had, the relationships we have. You know, we can buy ads on ad exchanges, and we currently do on a managed service basis for sportsbooks. That's essentially what we're doing. Where the rubber hits the road really here, Bernie, as I say, is not only do we bring all that expertise around those key points of emotion, but it's about then creating our own inventory. As I say, that Spectrum is a really good example of that, where we're creating our own inventory.
You have seen that in others, I mean, the basketball examples in some of the European basketball leagues, where you are not, if you are an advertiser, you are a brand, you are not going to be able to get that inventory anywhere else. You can only get that through Genius, only get that through Genius IQ, and only get that through the FAN Hub brand. Then again, you are back into that flywheel that we started off.
Over time, like if we're talking about FAN Hub, you know, five, ten years out, is that vision and that unique inventory going to be the lion's share of the inventory, do you think? Or maybe it's the most important, is probably the bigger point.
I think it's a vital part. It's a vital part of the brick. It's why BetVision, when we talked about it, now it's a key strategic element. It's a key strategic for a number of reasons. It's helping sportsbooks, that dwell time, you know, that one of those key metrics around people in the U.S., it's driving it to in-play sports betting, which is a great consequence. Again, that's helping drive that 44% in betting, which is a very important part. Ultimately, what that BetVision is going to create is that inventory, that key inventory, which of course, as you know then, Bernie, is massive margins as well in terms of profitability margins, because you're not going to get that anywhere else.
The key thing about this for us is because it's all done via AI and computer vision, this is done at, you know, the key points of emotion. This isn't just advertising in a game at various points. It can be, but it's also at the point of the three points. It's at the point of the touchdown. It's at the point of the soccer goal. You know, we're live right now with, in the Premier League, with certain broadcasters, certain streamers, where a brand can associate themselves at that point of the goal. That's critical because, you know, I can say this because I'm a Brit. You know, you can watch a Premier League game and for 89 minutes and 53 seconds, not very much happens. If you're associating yourself at that key point of high emotion for a brand, that's an advantage for them.
That is only going to be gotten through that, through the Genius IQ technology.
That is already happening.
That's live. Absolutely. That's live now.
Is there any, should we expect that for this upcoming NFL season?
Look, I mean, there's all sorts of things to work through and exciting things to announce in due course and so on and so forth. What I guess the key point to understand, Bernie, is this isn't on my Chief Product Officer's PowerPoint that we'll get round to. This is technology that exists today. And indeed, you know, as I say, a great example of that is the Spectrum deal. You know, one of the biggest media spending brands in the US has been doing that today on Clipper Vision. So again, this isn't a pipe dream. This is real.
Okay. Understood. Maybe just lastly on this, just what are the key checkpoints that you want to hit this year for FAN Hub? You know, we can grade your homework, so to speak.
I think there's a couple of things. First of all, financially, I think it's important to understand that actually we haven't built a huge amount of numbers into the 2025 guide. In order to hit our 620 guide, you know, I'm expecting media revenues to be, you know, double digit, low double digit, low teens digit growth for the whole year and to be in growth in Q2, Q3, and Q4. You know, there's been some noise around Q1. You know, that was entirely expected. Q1, you know, prior year revenue was up 63%. That's a little bit of an anomaly in truth. If we cast our minds back to those days, you know, Florida had just legalized and there was a lot of media spend going in in Florida, which was a sort of one-off event. Don't get me wrong. Great. Then it happened, Bernie.
It was always going to cause a problem from a comp perspective. Actually, if you look over on a two-year basis, you know, I think we've grown 19% across those two years, a compound 10%. So that's, you know, decent growth rate across that Q1. Expecting that to continue to grow. The key point is that FANH ub, I haven't built an awful lot of revenue. It's sort of low single-digit millions in that. Our job and Mark Locke and the team, you know, understandably, you know, your market's pushing us to accelerate that revenue as quick as we can. You know, we had an event last night, you know, a new front event in New York last night, where we presented in front of, I think it was 250 brands, came to understand, you know, what our products are looking like.
The conversations are deep and meaningful on this right now. Revenue hitting our numbers clearly, but as I say, it's not a significant part of those numbers for 2020, 2025. The other key thing, Bernie, is you keep seeing that cadence of announcements that we're doing, whether that's with agencies or whether that's with brands that we do from time to time. You know, we should continue to see those landing throughout 2025.
Okay. That's great to hear. About five minutes left, so I guess it's, you know, decent enough time to talk about margins. Just, you know, league rights costs, we get a lot of questions on, and especially in terms of like, you know, you mentioned before, I guess Genius is the middleman or they get squeezed by the leagues or not. I think it's pretty encouraging that the guidance that you set forth for the second, I think implies the second half, it's still nice incremental margins despite stepping up with the EPL. Maybe if, like how we should think about league renewals this year, but in particular, like is there anything special about that renewal with football data, Code, that would be out of the ordinary? Really, we're trying to get the read across for what the NFL could step up at in a couple of years.
I know there's a lot there, so I think you're all right.
Yeah. No, no. I mean, of course. I mean, what I would say actually, just sort of tying it to the previous conversations, is all of that conversations that we just talked about, all of the Genius IQ user cases are all pretty much rights agnostic. You know, that's a key thing going forward is, you know, they're at a very high margin and do not require any more additional rights. That's a key part of what we're going to be looking at going forward. I think for rights from a data space, you're right, obviously EPL, we head into the new contract. I think it's August 2025. You know, there was a step up, as you'd anticipate, but that step up is built into our guide of $125 million EBITDA and that step up in margin to $0.20. That's all costed in there.
If you think about it, it's similar to the sort of NFL deal. It's completely visible. It's fixed numbers. I've got complete visibility of what that data rights looks like all the way to 2030 or whenever that runs. Yeah, so that's a really good position to be. There's nothing significant on the EPL deal of that. Once you're into the new deal, there was a step up, as I say. Once you're into the deal, it's relatively shallow once you're into the deal in normal time. Rights is, you know, something that we obviously carefully look at. We've on record and continue to say we don't need any more. We're not, you know, I think the rights market has been relatively rational. We're delighted with the NCAA deal that we announced last week.
You know, that's entirely accretive, as we talked about, I think, on the earnings call and in previous press releases. You know, there's obviously sports federations and leagues that we would be delighted to work with, but we're in an unfortunate position to do it where we have to make sure that it's entirely accretive.
Right. Understood. Maybe this last question here, I wanted to make sure we touched on capital allocation, especially given the recent equity raise. M&A has been a hot topic with conversation with investors. You also have the $100 million buyback authorization that I think Mark characterized as just like good housekeeping, I believe. How should we think about, you know, now that, you know, you guys are generating free cash flow now, or expect to be more so this year than last year even? How should we be thinking about that use of cash being deployed? If this uncertainty in the macro, is that impacting that M&A pipeline at all?
Yeah. Look, a couple of things. I'll deal with the buyback now. Mark's absolutely right. That's exactly the right word for it, it's housekeeping. It's just another brick in our maturity. You know, we've always had shareholder approval. We have had for the last two years. You know, this is just getting board approval and announcing it. It's entirely opportunistic. It's there whenever we ever needed it. I'm not anticipating to do it anytime soon on our current stock price levels. However, it's there given the volatility in the macroeconomics in the world that we live in. Our priority still remains M&A, absolutely in terms of that. I think it's probably the only earnings call you've been listening to this year where somebody said, "We've done a lot of kissing," which is what Mark said on the call this time, which was a great answer.
Sorry, I'm being flippant, but the point is true. You know, we're looking, we're out there. What we're looking for really is subscale, high-quality sports tech somewhere in that flywheel really, Bernie, is what we're looking at. The two things, you know, CFO, I can, you know, two key things that I'm looking at really is it has to be margin accretive. It has to be cash accretive. You know, we worked hard over the last four years, as everyone knows, to get ourselves into that 20%+ EBITDA margins to be cash positive. We're not going to throw that away on speculative acquisition. That really remains our number one priority in this area.
Got it. Let's leave it there. You know, Mark, I think that's probably a good point to leave it on.
Hey, I hope he's not listening.
I can check. All right. Thanks, Nick. Thanks everyone for joining this morning.
Thanks, Bernie.