The NCAA has opened the door to another revenue stream for its members. According to Sportico, a memo went out last week that made it clear that schools and conferences can sell player data to sportsbooks. The only caveat is that the information sold to sportsbooks must also be available to the general public.
Professional leagues have been selling data to sportsbooks for some time now. Those deals often come along with a big check to make a sportsbook or clearinghouse “the official data partner” of the league involved.
Two NCAA conferences are already taking advantage of the ruling. The Mid American Conference is the one that asked for clarity as it shops for its own deal. It is pursuing a partnership with Genius Sports. The PAC-12 already has a data partnership in place. It has no yet begun selling data to sportsbooks.
Many NCAA schools already have sportsbook partnerships in place. The University of Colorado has a five-year, multi-million dollar deal with PointsBet that also pays the school $30 every time someone opens an account through its referral.
