Source: Livesport_Pavel Krbec_CEO
Pavel Krbec CEO of Livesport celebrates 20-years of flagship portal Flashscore being ahead of the curve on the delivery of sports data, metrics and audience engagement. New Ai challengers are welcome… but Krbec warns that they lack the agility, product sophistication and pedigree to challenge Flashscore at twenty and beyond.
“Let’s rewind 20-years”, Pavel Krbec Chief Executive of Livesport told SBC on the foundations of flagship Flashscore portal in 2006.
“The founding idea was simple: sports data was fragmented across dozens of sources, and fans had to jump between sites just to check a score. We brought it all into one place in Flashscore. Nearly 20 years later, the mission is essentially unchanged to deliver all the important sports information as it happens.”
In 2026 and beyond, the mandate remains as clear as day one, whatever the changes ensure Flashscore remains the unrivalled source of data for online sports audiences. Feed them whatever they seek – scores, events, stats, news, lineups, TV time, match previews and most importantly odds.
Flashscore is the founding property of Livesport, a company that has long transitioned from Czech Champion to Global Heavyweight. Krbec sounds like a proud coach describing the current metrics of the heritage portal:
“In October 2025 we reached a record 125.3 million monthly active users. Italy, Brazil, France and the UK are among our strongest markets.
“Total views across the platform hit nearly 300 billion last year. That engagement is not accidental, it is what happens when you build something people actually want to use every day.”
Yet organic growth is the driving factor, born on the remit of “an obsession to product detail and humble beginnings, others can’t copy:
“We never had venture capital or external investment. Every decision came from building something users genuinely needed, not from burning someone else’s money to buy growth. That discipline compounds over time.”
Flashscore 2.0
Two decades on, Flashscore is no longer just a scores website, but has evolved into a sports specific ecosystem. The challenge, however, has been adding depth without sacrificing the simplicity that made the product indispensable.
System and UX upgrades in 2025/2026 continue on the founding legacy. Features such as Follow Player reflect a shift in fan behaviour from club loyalty to player-centric tracking — allowing users to receive real-time updates on individual athletes.
“We’re seeing a new generation of fans who follow players as much as teams,” he explains. “So the product has to adapt to that behaviour, not the other way around.”
At the same time, deeper integrations with partners such as Stats Perform (Opta) have expanded the platform’s statistical offering. “The expectation now is not just to see a score, but to understand the game in real time — xG, positioning, defensive actions. That depth matters, especially for bettors.”
Flashscore has also accelerated its push into multimedia. Audio commentary has scaled rapidly following the removal of registration barriers, while original video formats — including collaborations with figures like Petr Čech — signal a broader content ambition.
“Removing friction was key,” Krbec says. “When we opened up audio without registration, usage doubled almost immediately. That tells you everything about how users want to consume content.”
Yet the core rule remains unchanged: “No feature is worth it if it slows the product down.”
Global scale has not been built on a uniform product, but on localisation executed with precision.
“We don’t believe in a global template,” Krbec states. “Sport is inherently local — the passion, the heroes, the narratives — so the product has to reflect that.”
Instead, each market is treated as its own ecosystem.
In Spain, coverage is anchored around La Liga; in Poland, it leans into national icons; in Brazil — now one of Flashscore’s fastest-growing markets — content is delivered in native language with local relevance at its core.
“Brazil is a great example,” he adds. “It’s not just about translating the product — it’s about understanding what fans care about, and building around that.”
This approach has proven decisive in driving engagement and retention. “Local depth builds loyalty,” Krbec concludes. “If users feel the product speaks their language — literally and culturally — they come back every day.”
Beating the Ai boys
If competition once came from rival score platforms, the threat landscape is now far broader and far less predictable. “The biggest competitor today isn’t another app,” Krbec says. “It’s the pace of change itself.”
The rise of AI-driven search, content aggregation and automated summaries is reshaping how users access information. Traditional discovery channels are under pressure, and long-term planning cycles are increasingly redundant.
“Anyone who tells you they know what this market looks like in five years is guessing,” he adds. “What matters is whether you can react when things change, because they will.”
For Flashscore, the response is rooted in agility. “We focus on building capability, not predictions,” Krbec explains. “If the ground shifts, we need to move with it as quickly as possible.”
The risk is not that another platform scores better. It is that the very mechanics of how users find scores are rewritten altogether.
Capturing World Cup 2026
Against this backdrop, the FIFA World Cup 2026 presents both a stress test and a commercial peak.
Flashscore has already used the 2025 Club World Cup as a live rehearsal — refining infrastructure, content formats and marketing strategy ahead of what is expected to be record-breaking global traffic.
“We treated 2025 as a full-scale test,” Krbec reveals. “Same environment, similar conditions — it gave us invaluable data on how users behave during peak tournaments.”
Looking ahead, the focus is on delivering depth at scale. “When a user opens Flashscore during the World Cup, they shouldn’t need anything else,” he says. “Everything — from live data to context — has to be there, instantly.”
For betting operators, the World Cup remains the single largest acquisition and conversion window in the cycle.
Always ahead of the curve, Krbec underlines Flashscore is now ready to capture its biggest sports audience event ever. “That’s where the opportunity is,” Krbec concludes. “If you can capture attention at that moment and convert it — the impact lasts far beyond the tournament itself.”
Ted Menmuir
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