Catalist Sports grants Kalshi exclusive US prediction-market rights to live streams and low-latency sports data
Catalist carves a single narrow slice out of a rights portfolio it doesn't own — exclusive US prediction-market access to Infront-sourced live streams and low-latency data — and sells it to Kalshi, turning rights architecture into the product itself.
Where the rake sits
Catalist keeps an undisclosed supplier fee for the exclusive US prediction-market slice; Infront and the underlying leagues keep the upstream rights economics; Kalshi keeps the trading rake on markets settled with the feed. The split between Catalist and Infront is not determinable from the source.
What happened
- Announced 8 September 2026 by Catalist Sports and Kalshi as a multi-year, first-of-its-kind agreement.
- Grant is narrowly scoped: exclusive US prediction-market access to live streams plus official low-latency data for creating, managing and settling contracts.
- Tennis coverage spans 65,000+ matches annually including World Tennis Tour, Australian Open and Davis Cup, alongside international soccer, basketball and ice hockey.
- Catalist is the licensed US distributor of Infront Sports & Media content, not the underlying rightsholder; sportsbook and Canadian channels remain outside the grant.
- Kalshi is the CFTC-regulated designated contract market that holds ~90-95% share of US prediction markets, valued at $22B (Series F, May 2026), with reported ~$52B in event contracts.
- Catalist calls the deal explicit recognition of prediction markets as a distinct distribution channel for premium sports content, separate from sportsbooks.
Who is involved
Licensed supplier of official sports data and live streaming to regulated US/Canadian markets; the substrate here is exclusive US distribution of Infront Sports & Media's content, including 60,000+ tennis events annually (ITF World Tour, Australian Open, Davis Cup) plus soccer, basketball and hockey.
Licensed in 28 US states plus Alberta; 60,000+ annual tennis events and 40,000+ live-streamed events across other sports; existing customers include FanDuel, DraftKings, Fanatics, Caesars
New York-based CFTC-regulated prediction-market exchange (designated contract market) that lists event contracts, including sports; the buyer taking the streaming/data feed to create and settle US prediction markets.
Series F closed May 2026 at $22B valuation, $1B raised (Coatue-led); ~$52B in event contracts as of March 2026; reported annualized revenues over $2B; claims 90–95% share of US prediction market
The reading
Catalist assembles and delivers the enriched product — official low-latency data and live streams sourced via its exclusive Infront reseller relationship — while Kalshi integrates that feed to create, manage and settle prediction-market contracts; the enrichment (rights aggregation, low-latency delivery) sits with Catalist, but market design sits with Kalshi.
The substrate — official, low-latency, integrity-monitored tennis/soccer/basketball feeds — is worth something specifically to Kalshi because prediction-market settlement requires trusted official data; Catalist has since layered IC360 integrity alerting on top, reinforcing that this is the exact substrate Kalshi needs to defend against Polymarket's Sportradar-backed offerings.
Exclusive US prediction-market rights to live streams and low-latency official data crossed to Kalshi under a multi-year licence; sportsbook and Canadian distribution rights stayed with Catalist, and the underlying rights ultimately belong to Infront and the leagues.
Not determinable — no fee is disclosed; the 'first-of-its-kind' exclusivity and the reported reannouncement with added regulatory language suggest the price reflects both scarcity value and regulatory risk, but public facts do not settle the split.
Why it matters
The interesting move here isn't the streaming or the data; it's that Catalist has sliced 'US prediction-market use' out of a rights bundle as a standalone commercial object, distinct from sportsbook, distinct from Canada, distinct from the underlying league rights. That slice only exists because someone decided to draw the boundary there — and Kalshi is willing to pay for exclusivity because prediction-market settlement depends on trusted official data, which is a different substrate requirement than a sportsbook's. Author to sharpen: is this a story about how channel-level exclusivity becomes the unit of monetisation once a new buyer category emerges, or about how the middleman's whole business is the boundary-drawing itself?
Sources
- g3newswire.com — primary
- catalistsports.com — party background
- catalistsports.com — party background
- britannica.com — party background
- finance.yahoo.com — party background
Announced 2026-09-08 · Added to the register 2026-09-15