By Niket Nishant
(Reuters) -Sports gaming company Underdog said on Tuesday it has hired new finance and marketing chiefs, bolstering its leadership days after it rolled out event contracts for wagering on sporting leagues.
The company, which offers fantasy sports games and licensed sports betting, has appointed Rishi Garg as its chief financial officer. A former executive at X, earlier called Twitter, Garg was most recently a venture partner at investment firm Mayfield, focusing on consumer deals.
Kimberly Pointer Corbett — previously a senior executive at Warner Bros Games, a part of Warner Bros Discovery — has been appointed as Underdog’s new chief marketing officer.
The hires could help support the company as it attempts to expand beyond its roots and carve out a spot in event contracts, a market dominated by high-profile firms such as Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood.
Underdog had partnered with Crypto.com’s U.S. derivatives arm earlier this month to roll out event contracts that would allow users to profit from predictions across all major sports leagues, including the NFL, college football, the NBA and the MLB.
While such contracts have drawn attention for cultural wagers such as elections and award show outcomes, executives at Underdog say sports will fuel the bulk of future growth.
“This is kind of a gold mine hiding in plain sight,” Garg said in an interview.
Some regulators and critics, however, have flagged the potential for event contracts to serve as a backdoor to gambling. But Underdog’s Pointer Corbett said they address a meaningful gap in how fans engage with sports.
“We’re here to make sports more fun. And when fans want sports news and content, we want them to think of Underdog,” she said in an interview.
Founded in 2020, Underdog projects $500 million in revenue this year.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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