Yahoo! Sports has signed Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins as its fantasy baseball spokesman and reached a deal to distribute daily video highlights during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
The dealmaking represents a bit of good news for a company otherwise dogged by negativity, with announcements last week of 1,000 planned job cuts, lower profits for an eighth straight quarter, a diminished financial outlook for 2008 and, as a result, a stock that’s trading at its lowest level in more than four years.
Rollins, the reigning National League MVP, will appear in Yahoo! Sports’ various marketing ventures for fantasy baseball and also will appear on TV and radio talk shows on behalf of Yahoo!. The company is now in its second year of signing athlete endorsers for its fantasy products. Andruw Jones and Johnny Damon endorsed Yahoo! fantasy baseball last year, while Chad Johnson was signed for football.
Jimmy Rollins will appear in
Yahoo! Sports marketing
ventures.
The NCAA video highlights deal was struck with image licensing outfit Thought Equity Motion, which in turn has a content partnership with the NCAA. Yahoo!’s deal calls for it to distribute game highlights on both Yahoo! and company-owned Rivals.com.
“We’re hanging in there. It’s been intense, probably as crazed as it’s been since I’ve been here,” said Jimmy Pitaro, Yahoo! Sports vice president and general manager. “But [Yahoo! chief executive] Jerry Yang has been clear that we’re going to make ourselves the best starting point on the Internet, and I feel confident that we’re going to continue to invest in sports content.”
To date, the recent Yahoo! staff cuts have not reached the sports channel, and Pitaro’s division, according to industry sources, is one of the few areas companywide to hit its financial targets during the fourth quarter of 2007. Furthermore, Pitaro recently hired a half-dozen writers to burnish a developing blogging initiative.
Still, financial analysts spent much of last week criticizing Yahoo! sharply for its corporate direction, with some even calling for a replacement for Yang. Market value for all of Yahoo!, hovering around $25 billion late last week, is less than half of 2006 levels and a fraction of rival Google.
Pitaro also has signed video development deals with Dunkin’ Donuts and Reebok as the sports division looks to sell additional exclusive sponsorships. Dunkin’ Donuts will sponsor a newly created one-minute daily video segment that, similar to the ESPN.com’s “SportsCenter” minute, will provide a quick online recap of news and highlights. With Reebok, Yahoo! will be the exclusive online distributor of “Framed,” which airs on IFC and features Reebok athletes being interviewed by film, TV and music celebrities in 30-minute shows also directed by those celebrities.
