USA Today's parent company, Gannett Co. Inc., was already a significant minority shareholder of FSV and has elected to complete the purchase through an acquisition of FSV's assets. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the deal is reportedly worth US$30 million. Based on the most recent comScore metrics, USA Today projects that the combination of FSV’s assets with its existing properties will create one of the top five sports sites on the web.
The digital assets that currently make up the USA Today Sports Media Group include USAToday.com/sports; digital outlets associated with 81 local Gannett newspapers and 23 Gannett-owned broadcast television stations; HighSchoolSports.net; and the BNQT Media Group, which includes mixed martial arts platform MMAjunkie.com. With nearly 19 million unique visitors in the latest comScore report, the FSV and Big Lead Sports property provide independent coverage of every major sport.
The sites include the TheBigLead.com, a leading source of breaking news and commentary. The acquisition also provides USA Today Sports Media Group with a strong initial footprint in fantasy sports. Last year more than 32 million people in the US actively participated in fantasy sports and FSV/Big Lead Sports have more than 500,000 active and paying subscribers to their fantasy offerings.
“This deal represents a major step forward for us, giving us dramatically more scale and a great ability to provide engaging, relevant content across the entire spectrum of sports fans,” said Tom Beusse, president of USA Today Sports Media Group. “The Big Lead sites fit very nicely into our existing portfolio, and now give us an unmatched sports platform to go along with our existing national and local strengths. These new content distribution outlets will enable us to better serve sports enthusiasts while providing advertisers and marketers with a one-stop solution for all of their sports marketing needs.”
Chris Russo, founder and chief executive officer of Big Lead Sports, added: “We are very proud that we built Big Lead Sports into the No.1 independent online sports property. Joining the USA Today family will enable Big Lead Sports to grow further and provide a new and bigger platform for our talented writers, contributors and advertising partners.”