Send one rights-first brief and require answers tied to evidence. Eliminate proposals that cannot establish the required use before comparing optional features or catalogue size.
A practical RFP should include:
- Contracting entity, domains and proposed channels.
- Non-wagering product definition and excluded features.
- Intended audience and territories.
- Essential titles, studios, variants and editorial priorities.
- Asset, metadata, translation and publication requirements.
- Expected launches and usage scenarios.
- Supported devices, browsers and privacy states.
- Integration stack and current authentication approach.
- Required evidence, pilot protocol and acceptance rules.
- Support, change-notice, renewal and exit requirements.
Require each response to distinguish included, excluded, available at extra cost and not yet confirmed. Ask for the document or demonstration supporting important claims.
After mandatory gates pass, compare the remaining candidates against buyer-set weights for coverage, reliability, metadata, operating effort, support and total cost. Record the reason for the final decision and the unresolved items accepted by the accountable owner.
For a bounded first decision, commission or complete four artifacts: a rights register, usable-catalogue comparison, reproducible launch pilot and twelve-month cost model. Those are more useful than an unsupported “best demo supplier” ranking.
What remains unproven by public research?
Public pages establish relevant supplier offerings, specific usage restrictions and several actionable integration issues. They do not establish complete upstream rights chains, negotiated US territory schedules, independently measured launch performance, current private quotations or a reliable market-average cost. Those are the next evidence requests—not gaps to fill with assumptions.