Yahoo! buys! Rivals!

No, not the Jilly Cooper tome

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Entertainment, 21st June 2007 09:56 GMT

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Yahoo! has bought college and high school sports site Rivals.com.

Yahoo! says the buy will bolster its existing sports coverage, which mostly focuses on national sports. Rivals, which opened in 2001, claims two million visitors a month and concentrates on college football and basketball.

The deal, we're told, is all about community and Rivals' "most engaged sports audience on the internet".

Although financial terms were not disclosed, speculation is that Yahoo! paid in the region of $100m.

Rivals has 180,000 subscribers who pay $10 a month, and the site also brings in cash from advertising and ecommerce.

The deal comes days after co-founder Jerry Yang took over the top job at Yahoo!, replacing Terry Semel, although presumably he didn't put the deal together in four days.

The Yahoo! release is here, or the statement from Rivals' CEO Shannon Terry is here. ®

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