World Championship Sports Network is expected to announce thisweek a multiyear distribution agreement with Yahoo! Sports that will expand thereach of the Olympic sports portal.
The deal will see WCSN provide free weekly branded videos toYahoo! Sports that will be featured on the site’s Olympic and Olympic sportschannels, such as swimming and cycling. WCSN also will offer Yahoo! visitorsone day of free live footage of track and field, skiing, cycling and volleyballevents. Viewing subsequent days of the event will require they become WCSNsubscribers.
WCSN offers annual and monthly subscriptions for $49.95 and $4.95,respectively.
WCSN has done other content-sharing deals with Joost, YouTube andBreak.com, a men’s online entertainment channel, but this is its first dealwith a major Web portal. WCSN content will become available on Yahoo! in mid-to late June.
The agreement comes at an important time for WCSN, which isseeking additional funding. It is hoping to raise $15 million to $25 million.Its investors include Polaris, a venture capital group, and MLB Advanced Media.
The deal follows WCSN’s broadcast of swimmer Michael Phelpstoppling five world records at the FINA World Championships in late March. WCSNloaned footage of those events to several outlets, including Yahoo!, after theevent, and that opened the door to the content deal with Yahoo! Sports.
WCSN has seen its traffic increase 11 percent in the last threemonths, according to alexa.com, which measures Web site traffic. Yahoo! isgenerally among the leaders in sports traffic, with an average of 14.6 millionunique visitors per month in the last year, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings.
Yahoo! has struck other content distribution deals with morevertically oriented sites as a means to broaden the offerings of its portal.
Most notably, the companystruck a similar deal with Rivals.com last year, and is now in advanced discussionsto buy that company.
