SoCalHoops High School News

FoxSports.com Calls It A Day; Rivals.com
Inks Deal With Yahoo!--(Feb. 13, 2001)

We've been hearing about the cutbacks at FoxSports.com for the past two months.  In January, News Corp., Inc, the parent company of Fox, FoxSports and FoxSports.com, announced that it would turn over operations of its websites to the television department heads.  No one knew just exactly what that meant, and we're still not sure what it means for sportswriters like Frank Burlison, who left the Long Beach Press Telegram to join the Orange County Register, and then who left the Register to join Fox, quickly becoming their senior sports writer nationally for college basketball.   Today we were listening to 1150 Sports Talk radio, and it was announced that Fox Sports.com was "calling it quits". . . now we haven't been able to get any hard confimation that the websites are going down, but one look at FoxStudentSports.com will demonstrate that rather than expanding the coverage for high school hoops, things are slowing way down, and we're pretty certain that there will be a major restructuring there. . .

And along the lines of restructuring, we've also been hearing for months that things are going through a shakeup at Rivals.com, not the first such shakeup at Rivals  (actually last summer there was a rather large management restructuring), and it won't likely be the last either.  As most people who frequent their sites know, sites such as Bruin Report Online and others have been experimenting with making part of the site "premium-based content" i.e., subscription, while the message boards and other older articles or non-exclusive stories remain free.   Rivals has made it fairly well-known that it's advertising revenues, like the rest of the internet, are way down, and so they had to look for other sources of revenue to keep the company going.  Fox is, and has been for a few years, a major investor in Rivals, and the big question in a lot of observers' minds is how much Rivals fortunes on the web will be with Fox's. . . and since Rivals is a privately held company, not much information makes its way to the street.

But it appears other strategic alliances are always just on the horizon when it comes to internet companies who have content. . .content that people want to read, and Rivals is lucky enough that it has successfully cultivated a real fan niche market.  So it came as no surprise to us when we read yesterday's press release about Rivals' new deal with Yahoo!, and it looks like this deal could breath some new life into Rivals and it may be a prelude to a closer arrangement with the world's most popular "portal" site.  Here's the press release announcing the content-distribution deal which Rivals inked yesterday with Yahoo!  If you can read through all the "we're the best" stuff, the deal itself is interesting. . . :

Rival Networks Inks Content Distribution Agreement with Yahoo!

Yahoo! Sports to Feature Rivals.com's Team-specific and Recruiting Content

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2001--Rival Networks, the operator of Rivals.com (www.rivals.com), a leading network of sports team and affinity channels, today announced a content distribution agreement with Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media company. Through the agreement, Yahoo!® Sports(a), the Web's most popular sports site(b), is featuring on its team pages Rivals.com's original college and professional team-specific content. Rivals.com is also distributing its Rivals100(TM) player selections and recruit profiles, including analysis and profiles from the nation's leading recruiting experts, to Yahoo! Sports' (http://sports.yahoo.com) college and professional team pages. 

``Rivals.com's relationship with an Internet powerhouse like Yahoo! enables us to dramatically increase our reach while delivering original, in-depth sports content to millions more passionate fans every day,'' said Saul Gamoran, CEO of Rival Networks. ``Yahoo!'s selection of Rivals.com is a validation of the expertise and insight that our publishers provide.'' 

``Yahoo! Sports is committed to providing the most compelling online sports content to our millions of monthly visitors,'' said Tonya Antonucci, director of production, Yahoo! Sports, News and Weather. ``Rivals.com's leading original, in-depth, team-specific and recruiting content helps us deliver on that promise to our users.'' 

Rivals.com content appearing on Yahoo! Sports will be presented on co-branded pages where Rivals.com's publishing technology will enable Rivals.com to distribute content to both Yahoo! Sports and its own network of sites simultaneously, ensuring that Yahoo! Sports' users receive Rivals.com's most timely sports content and breaking news. 

``Rivals.com's relationship with Yahoo! enables Rivals.com to significantly expand its audience and brand exposure, which the company will use to strengthen existing revenue streams, such as premium content offerings, e-commerce, advertising and multiple e-mail marketing initiatives,'' continued Gamoran. 

About Rival Networks 

Seattle-based Rival Networks is a leading infrastructure services company that aggregates online communities into easy-to-navigate networks. The Rivals.com network consists of hundreds of sports-related team and affinity channels, with more than 700 writers and experts who deliver leading in-depth team and player coverage. The European-based Rivals.net (www.rivals.net) network consists of more than 300 team and sport-specific Web sites, covering the most popular European sports. Rivals Japan (www.rivals.co.jp) is a joint venture between Softbank Media and Marketing (SBMM) and Rival Networks, Inc., and provides in-depth sports coverage and sports communities in Japan. Rival Networks' proprietary technology enables publishers to input their expert commentary and news information without having to program or design the site. Investors include Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (www.humwin.com), Intel Corporation (www.intel.com), News Corp.'s News Digital Media (NYSE:NWS - news), producer of FOXSPORTS.com (www.foxsports.com), The Phoenix Partners (www.phoenixvc.com) and SOFTBANK Capital Partners (www.sbcp.com). 

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.  (a) Yahoo! Sports is a collection of sports-specific URLs on the Yahoo! network as defined by Yahoo! (b) For December 2000 according to a custom report provided by Media Metrix. Category as defined by Yahoo! includes CNNSI.com, ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, MLB.com, NASCAR.com, NBA.com, NFL.com, Rivals.com, Sportingnews.com, Sportsline.com, USAToday Sports, and WWF.

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