McLean, Va. – USA Today, the national newspaper of McLean, Va.-based Gannett, said on Tuesday its Sports Media Group has acquired New York-based Fantasy Sports Ventures (FSV) and Big Lead Sports, which provide independent coverage of every major sport, as well as fantasy sports.
Gannett already owned a minority stake in FSV. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
FSV and Big Lead Sports together have 19 million unique visitors, according to comScore. The family of sites includes the TheBigLead.com, which provides breaking news and commentary across all sports, as well as BaseballHQ.com, KFFL.com, TheHuddle.com, Baseball-Reference.com, HoopsWorld.com and HoopsHype.com.
“This deal represents a major step forward for us, giving us dramatically more scale and a great ability to provide engaging, relevant content across the entire spectrum of sports fans,” said Tom Beusse, president of the USA Today Sports Media Group.
The acquisition also gives the group a strong initial footprint in fantasy sports. USA Today’s Sports Media Group includes USAToday.com/sports, websites for 81 local Gannett newspapers and 23 company-owned TV stations, HighSchoolSports.net and the BNQT Media Group, which includes MMAjunkie.com.
This article was also published in Potomac Tech Wire.
Related links:
http://www.fantasysportsventures.com
Press release – http://tinyurl.com/7f3bht2
Big Lead Sports blog post – http://tinyurl.com/8xz3nze
Photo by Flickr user puuikibeach, used under Creative Commons license
