Sports data, betting, governance & the law: Interview with Steven Burton, Genius Sports - Episode 41

Friday, 16 December 2016

Steven Burton is a sports lawyer and expert on legal issues related to the use of data in sport having acted for leading businesses in sport and sports data. Steven is currently the Director of Integrity, Governance & Sports Partnerships at Genius Sports.

In this interview Steven speaks to Sean Cottrell, LawInSport founder & CEO, and shares his insights into:

How to build a reputation in sports law and specifically, sports data in private practice.
Why he transitioned from private practice to an in-house role.
His work as Director of Integrity, Governance & Sports Partnerships.
The trends developing in sport in the areas of integrity & governance.
How the role of data in sport in sport develop and the associated legal issues.
What Genius Sports be focusing on in the sports sector in the next 12 months.

Steven's Bio:

Regarded by the independent legal directory Chambers and Partners as “the foremost legal authority” in sports data, Steven Burton is to join Genius Sports as Director of Integrity, Governance and Sports Partnerships.

An internationally recognised sports lawyer, Steven brings seventeen years’ expertise in the collection, exploitation and protection of sports data and sports integrity matters.

As a Partner and the Head of Sports Data, Betting & Integrity at Couchmans LLP (one of the world’s premier sports law firms) Steven advised numerous international sports leagues and federations including Football DataCo Limited (Premier League, English Football League and Scottish Professional Football League), ATP Tour, WTA Tour, The International Tennis Federation (ITF), Israeli Professional Football League, The Football Association of Ireland and Liga de Futbol Profesional (LFP Spanish Football).

From a sports partnerships perspective, Steven has been involved in some of the biggest and most valuable sports data deals of all time. He has advised Football DataCo Limited since its creation in 1999. He recently helped the ITF to negotiate a new five-year data rights deal covering more than 90,000 tennis matches per year - the largest single package of official data rights in world sport, and worked with La Liga to implement their first ever official data rights scheme in 2014.

Steven heads up Genius Sports’ Integrity Services from the commercial side. Since 2013, Genius Sports has established itself as the trusted integrity partner of some of the world’s largest sports leagues and federations including the English Premier League, Major League Baseball (MLB) and Euroleague Basketball.

For more podcasts, videos, articles, events and news focused sports law visit LawInSport.com or follow us on Twitter @LawInSport. You can follow the host Sean Cottrell on Twitter at @spcott.

It can be listened to on Soundcloud, iTunes or most Android podcast apps.