June 21, 2007
Yahoo completes Rivals.com purchase
According to reports, Yahoo.com will announce today that they have completed the purchase of Rivals.com for an undisclosed price.
While Yahoo has integrated some content from Rivals within its site for the past two years, the purchase likely means additional college sports content will be available via Yahoo and Yahoo Sports. In a statement, Rivals CEO Shannon Terry said that the agreement will help Rivals expand its offerings, which have recently grown to include SMS updates and fan pages.
Partnering with Yahoo! will help us build the next generation of Rivals' products and services for hardcore and casual sports fans, and allow us to reach an entirely new fan base (after all, Yahoo! is the most-visited site on the Internet).For all of our current readers and community members, we believe this agreement means that you can expect an even better experience in the future. We will have the best engineering team in the business and it will allow us to create more and more products and services that true sports fans want. To all our Rivals readers, thank you for your support. To all our future Rivals readers, I want to say welcome. We look forward to the future.
For the foreseeable future, there is not expected to be a major change in the structure or subscription model for the Rivals network sites, such as Warchant.com, BlueWhiteIllustrated.com and Fanblogs.com. And while it is possible that changes will occur at some point, Yahoo has proven themselves to be very publisher friendly over the years. In other words, little ol Fanblogs.com is likely to remain as is for a long while.
On a personal note, I want to offer up my best to the boys at Rivals.com. They created and nurtured an outlet for hundreds of thousands of sports fans. Rivals.com literally changed the game for internet sports. I have gotten to know several members of the Rivals team over the past year & a half. They never quit being college fans themselves, regardless of how big the business became and I couldn't be happier for them. Congrats to all!
Comments:
PreProSports.com said:
posted on June 21, 2007 10:22 AM — 68.21.103.162 — link — abuse?
The biggest risk for any of these deals is how the little guy (Rivals.com) suddenly has to fight for resources and funding from the big guy (Yahoo!). Rivals brings in revenue, which is more than most of the "features" companies that Google and Yahoo! swallow up can say, but they are going to find a larger corporate parent to be more difficult to work under.
Good luck to the Rivals guys!
noleinator said:
posted on June 21, 2007 2:15 PM — 24.243.129.195 — link — abuse?
i remember fox i think, and somebody else maybe too, tried to purchase the rivals network previously but that the owner of rivals bungled the sales by trying to falsify certain information. anyways, i would rather it be yahoo rather than fox, wonder if the sale was as lucrative as fox was offering...should be good for rivals members though.
posted on June 21, 2007 3:37 PM — link — abuse?Kevin Donahue said:
Amen on the Fanbogs.com National Championship! ;) (Of course, I'd settle for a little more help with my credentials this year!)
goodolnuma5 said:
posted on June 21, 2007 10:25 PM — 65.24.221.145 — link — abuse?
Im with you Trojan Horse,
this aint myspace, tis hallowed ground thy tread upon.
To be honest, Kev knows more about this stuff than they do.
Begone thy amatures!
posted on June 23, 2007 6:10 PM — link — abuse?
I know a lot more about shoddy writing than most, too! ;)
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SEMINOLE_NATION said:
posted on June 21, 2007 7:57 AM — 71.14.108.232 — link — abuse?I think this is an AWESOME move by Rivals.com. I only hope Yahoo! doesnt try to change what they do too much - after all they do it best. Hopefully Yahoo! will improve Rivals.com even more with better engineering and maybe more writers to cover teams for more stories.