Navigating business interests through the sanctions put on Russia for their invasion of Ukraine is extremely challenging for businesses, as the executives at Sportradar are learning. Scratching a country like Russia, with a population of 144 million, off your books may be an easy moral decision, but the financial consequences can be extreme. But with sanctions on doing business with Russia, companies like Sportradar are forced into action.
Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl discussed the impact of sanctions on his company in a recent call with investors saying that the impact from sanctions would be limited.“So far in 2022, we have not had a meaningful financial impact from the conflict. So far, the impact we have had is limited to the affected regions – we have not had a downstream impact.”
But limited impact doesn’t mean no impact. Keorl pointed out that Ukraine was a center of the extremely active world of competitive table tennis. “In Ukraine we worked with table tennis and with esports at scale. Unfortunately they haven’t been able to hold these events any more, but this has been mitigated with content in other countries such as the Czech Republic. Of course we did have reduced content for a short period, but that has been fully mitigated now,” he said.
In Russia Sportradar has suspended all business operations, including signing up new customers, and had only a limited interest in a Russian sportsbook to start with, according to a recently posted statement.
Fortunately for Sportradar, 2022 is looking to be a banner year, and the loss of Ukrainian and Russian business is not going to have a significant impact on the company’s bottom line. With 2021 revenue of more than $600 million, Sportradar is doing just fine.