Alex Barkar, founder and CEO of BETER, provides a timeline for the company’s journey from sports content startup to becoming an established provider targeting maximum reach for its solutions, including both live streams and odds for the Setka Cup and ESportsBattle tournaments, as well as worldwide esports events coverage.
2018 – what BETER time to start?
The creation of our company was prompted by a very clear idea of the product that we wanted to design. We understood what content bookmakers need and what content becomes more and more relevant in the sports betting industry. It’s all about fast, reliable, 24/7 sports and esports events.
We noticed this niche and decided to develop it. In 2018, when we founded the company, there was not much of such content on the market, and the quality of the broadcast image was not always attractive.
So we faced a challenge and an opportunity to create an advanced product that will meet and cover all the needs of betting operators at once. This is how BETER was launched.
March 2018 – the start of the Setka Cup
After we had formulated the product idea of the BETER company, we quickly moved to its active implementation. We started with table tennis because the development of classic sports was the main focus of our initial strategy.
To do this, we found professional, experienced table tennis players who profoundly understood this sport and were ready to be responsible for the sports part of the tournament organisation. The BETER team took care of all other technical and operational issues.
We equipped the first arenas and training rooms in accordance with international standards, set up a security system inside the tournaments, developed an effective schedule and gathered a dedicated team of traders.
And in this way, BETER creates a complex product that includes reliable tournaments, 24/7 live streams of these tournaments, accurate odds & stable live data.
2019 – let the ESportsBattle commence
ESportsBattle appeared a year later than the Setka Cup. Our team was among those who believed in the prospects of this direction. If you fast forward to today, we provide our clients with more than 15,000 events every month within the ESportsBattle that includes efootball, ebasketball, ice hockey and CS:GO leagues. However, we also offer the fullest possible coverage of world esports tournaments.
As we like to put it, we make both the Setka Cup and ESportsBattle tournaments ‘beterable’, i.e. – available to bet on, profitable for bookmakers and popular with fans. As well as the wide range of pre-match and in-play odds, we also supply 24/7/365 live streaming for the events.
I would say that the pandemic rather highlighted the benefits and relevance of our product in the industry. The demand was there even before. With many partners with whom we began to cooperate in 2020, negotiations had started long before the pandemic.
2020 – the coronavirus provides indirect esports and table tennis boost
Indeed, we won’t deny that the demand for the fast content we provide 24/7 with multiple simultaneous streams has grown significantly over the past year.
The important thing is that our company was ready to scale thanks to the well-established processes that we had set up. Our events have been instrumental in supporting the industry during these challenging times.
There were examples of how other companies had decided to create products similar to ours from scratch during the pandemic and soon ended their projects. They simply could not quickly take into account and adjust the huge number of components required for the product to be stable and reliable.
2021 – a time for expansion of distribution
Our company has been operating for more than three years. When we started developing the BETER product and the Setka Cup and ESportsBattle tournaments, we first wanted to focus on the product itself. It was vital for us to create a high-quality product. Therefore, we chose to transfer such an essential function as sales to our partner Betbazar, a global sales-house in the gaming industry.
Now we have reached a point where we are fully confident in our product, its stability, and its profitability. We are constantly growing and expanding our areas of responsibility and range of expertise. In the last year alone, the number of employees has increased by 200+ people.
Therefore, our goal for 2021 is the maximum distribution of content to new clients and new markets. We already work with bet365, Sportradar, William Hill, Parimatch, EveryMatrix, as well as many other industry leaders. Our portfolio has a vast number of matches and events that can satisfy and cover a broad audience, meeting many needs of the betting industry.
In the meantime, we are building new departments and functions that our company did not have before — for instance, account management for our B2B clients and marketing assistance. These changes will allow us to provide even faster and more proactive support. All our specialists will be able to be more involved in our client’s business.
What makes our tournament products stand out from the crowd is that they’ve been designed, from the ground up, with the specific needs of the betting industry in mind.
Our trading of world esports events is distinguished by its complete coverage, high accuracy of odds and deep expertise.
We pay much attention to produce content that is interesting for bettors. We have also started to promote powered by BETER events among bettors even more actively.
That’s why we aim to provide a large variety of ‘beterable’ content that empowers everyone, be it players, operators, bettors or fans.
This article was originally published by SBC News.
