Fraud, corruption or negligence related to sports events, or by our employees or contracted statisticians collecting data on behalf of the Company, may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and negatively impact our reputation.
Our reputation and the strength of our brand are key competitive strengths. To the extent that the sports and sports betting industry as a whole or the Company, relative to its competitors, suffers a loss in credibility, our business will be significantly impacted. Factors that could potentially have an impact in this regard include fraud, corruption or negligence related to sports events, including as a result of match fixing, or by our employees or contracted statisticians collecting data on behalf of the Company or third parties. Operational errors, whether by us or our competitors, could also harm the reputation of the Company or the sports data, sports betting, online gaming and sports marketing industries. Damage to reputation and credibility could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business depends on a strong brand, and if we are not able to develop, maintain and enhance our brand and reputation, including as a result of negative publicity, our business and operating results may be harmed.
We believe that developing, maintaining and enhancing our brand is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our products and services, attracting new customers, retaining existing customers, persuading existing customers to adopt additional products and services and hiring and retaining our employees. We believe that the importance of our brand will increase as competition in our markets further intensifies. Successful promotion of our brand will depend on a number of factors, including the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, including thought leadership, our ability to provide high- quality, reliable and cost-effective products and services, the perceived value of our products and services and our ability to provide quality customer success and support experience. Brand promotion activities require us to make substantial expenditures. To date, we have made significant investments in the promotion of our brand. The promotion of our brand, however, may not generate customer awareness or increase revenue, and any increase in revenue may not offset the expenses we incur in building and maintaining our brand.
We operate in a public-facing industry where negative publicity, whether or not justified, can spread rapidly through, among other things, social media. Negative publicity, including related to the use of fixed-odds betting terminals, sports betting by vulnerable parties, whether or not it is connected with our services or brand and lack of diversity within the industry may adversely impact our reputation and the willingness of the public to participate in sports betting, negatively impact the promotion of our brand or cause jurisdictions to place restrictions on, or ban, sports betting. To the extent that we are unable to respond timely and appropriately to negative publicity, our reputation and brand could be harmed. Moreover, even if we are able to respond in a timely and appropriate manner, we cannot predict how negative publicity may affect our reputation and business.
We and our employees also use social media to communicate externally. There is risk that the use of social media by us or our employees to communicate about our business may give rise to liability or result in public exposure of personal information of our employees or customers, each of which could affect our revenue, business, results of operations and financial condition.
We may not be able to offset higher costs associated with inflation and other general cost increases.
We are subject to inflationary and other general cost increases, including with regard to our labor costs, selling and marketing costs, communications costs, travel costs, software development costs, professional fees and other costs. General economic conditions may result in higher inflation, which may increase our exposure to higher costs. If we are unable to offset these cost increases by price increases, growth, and/or cost reductions in our operations, these inflationary and other general cost increases could have a material adverse effect on our operating cash flows, profitability, and liquidity.
We operate in a competitive market and we may lose customers and relationships to both existing and future competitors.
The markets for sports data and sports data technology services and solutions and marketing services are competitive and rapidly changing. The sports media industry is particularly competitive and fast growing.
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