Carsten Koerl

Conservatively, Koerl’s 31.8% stake in Sportradar could be worth roughly $2.3 billion after a planned IPO in 2021. A native of Allgäu, a mountainous region in southern Germany, Koerl—now 56— reportedly had a fascination with sports throughout childhood, harboring ambitions of competing in downhill skiing or professional tennis. However, he pivoted to computer engineering when he realized a future in athletics was unlikely. Koerl studied electronic and microprocessor engineering at the University for Applied Sciences in Konstanz, Germany and held several management roles in the software and gaming industries before founding online gambling company bwin (then called betandwin) in 1997. He took the company public on the Austrian Stock Exchange in March 2000. In 2001, Koerl formed Sportradar by buying 51% of a nascent Norwegian sports betting odds and data company called Market Monitor AS. It has since expanded globally, including into the U.S. in 2014.