Smaaz’s Blog

Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire Rivals.com

June 22nd, 2007

Yahoo! today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Rivals.com, the leading online destination for college and high school sports and recruiting information. The acquisition will significantly expand the community offerings and open publishing capabilities of Yahoo! Sports, which has the most engaged sports audience on Internet. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Rivals.com is a online provider of college and high school sports and recruiting information, primarily focused on football and basketball. The acquisition will bring an important addition to Yahoo! giving the company a clear leadership position in some of the most important categories in sports publishing.

The locally-driven open publishing network will complement the offerings of Yahoo! Sports, which are currently focused on coverage of national sports stories, as well as fantasy sports games and information. Rivals.com maintains a network of more than 150 individual websites, which attract approximately 2 million fans each month. Because the Rivals.com network also attracts an active community of users on each site, the acquisition will play an important role in building on Yahoo!’s mission to connect its users to their communities.

Additionally, Rivals.com is expected to bring new revenue opportunities to Yahoo!’s advertising and subscription businesses, which are currently the key drivers of Rivals.com’s business model. Yahoo! believes there are potential growth opportunities in both businesses, given that Rivals.com has established a profitable and growing business model in both of these areas, with little marketing and sales support. For Yahoo! advertisers, Rivals.com reaches a sought-after demographic: an engaged and highly educated consumer. Yahoo! also sees potential in expanding the core demographic of the site to reach a younger demographic through its high school sports offerings.

Entry Filed under: Yahoo!