Editors’ Note

Giampiero “Gipi” Rinaudo graduated in Turin, Italy with a degree in computer science and was gaining experience working as a freelancer when he started developing timing and data service solutions for the Alpine Ski World Cup and Formula 1 races. In 1986, he co-founded Deltatre. He has fostered its growth from its earliest key milestone in 1994, when it launched the first centralized result system for the brand-new UEFA Champions League. Rinaudo is responsible for the strategy and business development that has grown Deltatre from a three-man team to more than 1,000 employees located in 19 offices around the world.

Company Brief

Deltatre (deltatre.com) prides itself on being the most trusted name in sports media. Since 1986, Deltatre has delivered, over and over, for the world’s most watched sports events. Working with rights owners and rights holders, it has helped sports grow by giving fans ever more beautiful and immersive experiences, enhancing the brands of leagues, federations, teams, TV networks and content providers. From broadcast to web, desktop to tablet, mobile to VR, Deltatre brings the best combination of design, technology and operations to the table, live, in the moment, and with no room for mistakes.

What was the vision for creating Deltatre?

Deltatre has been driving innovation around the fan experience for over 33 years, making it the most experienced company in the sports technology sector. When we started, it was not only before the Internet; even PC’s didn’t exist. At that time, we started providing what I would now call simple but important services to some of the major sports properties, like Formula 1 or alpine skiing. We introduced transponders in Formula 1 that are still being used to this day. It was difficult at that time to envision where we are now, with all of the digital development that has taken place, but the starting point was, and still is, improving the way fans consume sports through the use of technology.

How important is brand awareness to Deltatre?

This has always been an interesting topic for us at Deltatre. We do not sell our technology to end users or fans so for Deltatre, being known by billions of people has never been important to our success. Of course, in our space of sports technology, it helps to be known as a company that is always looking forward and never fails to deliver for some of the world’s most viewed events – which is something we have worked hard to achieve – but it has never been a priority for us to be recognized by the audiences our clients serve.

We recognize that our work is behind-the-scenes, to help the sports and entertainment organizations reach as many eyeballs as they can. That’s the reason why we are well-known within our environment, and less known outside the sector. Our relative public anonymity is by design.

… the starting point was, and still is,
improving the way fans consume sports through
the use of technology.

When you look at the number of events that Deltatre is involved in worldwide, most of those that might be known would be the large, global events. Is that the main focus or are you involved in events of all different sizes?

We mainly work on high-end events like the World Cup or the Super Bowl. This is where our expertise lies; delivering highly complex, large-scale live events. We manage most of the big leagues, across all sports, throughout the year in some capacity, whether it’s around data, graphics, production, digital or streaming video. With our recent acquisition of Massive Interactive, a multi-award-winning OTT software company, we now have another best-in-class capability to add to our overall technology suite of services to service the entertainment sector as well.

What strength and advantages has Bruin Sports Capital brought to Deltatre?

We have been very pleased with the growth of Deltatre after the acquisition by Bruin. This has helped us develop a substantial market in the United States, we are growing in Asia, and we have strengthened our leadership position in Europe.

Bruin and George (Pyne) have been instrumental in this. The team works very fast and is very flexible, which is important for us because in sport you cannot change the date of an event; you have to move fast and deliver every time.

Is Deltatre a sports media company or is it a technology company?

I normally call it a sport technology company in the media space, because the term media company often means that you own content. Deltatre does not own content because we don’t want to compete with our clients who are the ones that own and distribute the content. Our clients are either those who originate the rights, such as sports governing bodies or leagues, or those who buy the rights, such as broadcasters and networks.

Are you able to take moments to appreciate what Deltatre has become and to celebrate the wins?

That’s a good question. With the acquisition of Massive, we have more than 1,000 people working across 19 offices around the world.

It has been a long journey and we’ve been lucky to work in two sectors that have never stopped growing, sports rights and technology.

I am proud of what we’ve achieved – it’s been a fantastic journey so far built on the hard work of our staff and the trust of our clients. But we usually have very little time to celebrate – sport doesn’t stop. In today’s environment, you need to focus on the future and be ready to change and adapt all of the time – bring on the next thirty years.