SI parent Time Inc. has acquired The FanSided Network, a collection of more than 300 online fan-driven sports, entertainment and lifestyle digital communities. SI and the FanSided Network already had a distribution and promotional partnership in which the latter's traffic would roll up to SI for advertising and comScore reporting purposes. But the latest deal involved an outright purchase by Time Inc. of the company, which has about 15 million monthly unique visitors. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. SI intends to retain the existing FanSided Network staff, including co-Founders Adam and Zach Best, and the FanSided brand. FanSided content will also appear on other Time Inc. brands in addition to SI. Time Inc. Senior VP/Digital Scott Havens said, "We think there's a lot of upside by working more closely together. By their now being fully on the team, this opens up a much deeper level of integration from both a sales perspective and a content perspective. We've traditionally been a more horizontally-oriented operation. But bringing on FanSided completely allows us to go much deeper into team-specific areas. And with their getting more and more into entertainment content, that's also of great interest to Time Inc."
