SportCaller brings in Grand Parade founder Clerkson
SportCaller will up the ante in both business and product development in the final few months of 2018 after announcing the appointment of industry veteran Andy Clerkson (pictured) as chairman.
The free-to-play sports games developer has an eye on growth in the US and a series of other regions after almost trebling its number of partnerships and releasing more than 20 new games so far this year. A successful World Cup has helped it to develop stronger relations with key partners such as GVC, William Hill and Betfair, while it has also successfully introduced its new SCore platform.
Clerkson founded leading content, design and technology agency Grand Parade in 2007 before selling to William Hill in 2016. Throughout 2018 he has been in New Jersey, helping William Hill expand into newly-regulated states in the US.
Prior to setting up Grand Parade, Clerkson published Maxim USA for Dennis Publishing, which became the largest men’s magazine in the world, selling more than 2.5 million copies per month.
His creativity, strategic vision and contacts list make him the perfect appointment, according to SportCaller managing director Cillian Barry.
“Andy is a rare breed, he is equally brilliant at business development and product development,” Barry told iGamingBusiness.com.
“It is a rare skill to balance both and the reason why are excited about working closely with him on this accelerated growth stage for SportCaller.”
In the final few months of the year SportCaller is looking to further help its existing partners roll out its free-to-play content at group level. Barry told iGamingBusiness.com that its R&D team is developing new products and innovations that should be ready by early 2019.
In a statement Clerkson added: “What is really exciting is the potential for further growth around the world, not least in the US following the repeal of PASPA.
“I look forward to working closely with Cillian and his team to continue developing the strategy, which is all about value creation for our partners and their players.”
With popular titles such as Football 21, in which players predict which teams will score a total of 21 goals on a matchday, Barry told iGamingBusiness.com that operators from mainland Europe to the UK, US, Asia and Africa can all benefit by adding free-to-play content to their portfolio.
“With approximately 70% of game players returning to play on a weekly basis, a conversion rate of 20% from playing the game to clicking through to have a bet and one client reporting 400% higher value of customers playing these Games compared to customers not playing a Game means we have clearly demonstrated the business case for free-to-play,” he said. “As a result we have moved from the “Why?” to the “How?” and that is a stage we are enjoying at the moment.”