ESPN has quietly purchased 10 percent of the Active MarketingGroup for $20 million, according to sources close to the deal.
Aside from putting an overall valuation on Active at a timewhen money is flowing freely in the Internet sports space, ESPN’s investment inthe leading online sports registration company demonstrates the all-sportsnetwork’s continued interest in youth sports.
A group including John Skipper, executive vice president ofcontent, John Kosner, senior vice president of new media, and other top networkofficials have been huddling about opportunities in the youth sports space andplanning both a magazine and Web site aimed at parents of youth athletes, to becalled E Sports Parent N (see SportsBusiness Journal, May 8-14 issue).
However, a source familiar with the deal noted that there isno exclusivity to ESPN, as regards further equity in Active. “[Active] couldturn around and sell the rest to Fox or Time Warner with no problem,” thesource said.
For the past three to four years, ESPN has had an agreementthrough which it paid Active to drive traffic to its site. Active isheadquartered in San Diego, with offices in Boston, Denver and New York City.Its Web site, Active.com, is consistently ranked among the top 10 sports Websites and claims to have more than 7.2 million registered members, a millionmonthly unique users, and agreements with large youth sports organizations suchas Little League Baseball. Active.com accounts for 17 percent of ESPN.com’straffic in some of its most highly trafficked months.
“Top sports sites are duking it out for the pole position intraffic rankings,” said Evan Kamer, managing director of Octagon’s digitalmedia practice. “They all are looking for incremental traffic wherever they canget it, whether it is grown organically, received via partnerships and promotion,or as in this case, from investment and acquisition.”
While high school sports have been touted as an area ripe forcommercial exploitation by sports marketers, youth sports also are a growingopportunity.
“There’s considerable opportunity in youth sports and inreaching their parents,” said Maury Gostfrand, president of Vision SportsGroup, New York City, who licensed Joe Torre into an instructional CD-ROM, “JoeTorre’s Virtual Baseball Academy,” which went on sale last week. “Obviously,you can’t be overtly commercial, but there’s a real thirst for information andthat means there’s a market for companies that do it right.”
