Fantasy Sports Ventures Takes Minority Stake In Sports Reference LLC
This story was written by Staci D. Kramer.
Fantasy Sports Ventures, the sports-rollup online media company, has acquired a minority stake in Sports Reference LLC, the parent company of Baseball-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com and Hockey-Reference.com. The amount is undisclosed; SBJ describes it as low seven figure, which sounds on par with similar deals. The sites do just what the domains suggestmake myriads of sports data available, including more than 100,000 MLB box scores and every scoring play in the NFL since 1941. Sports Reference, which was founded in 2004 and expanded to Sports Reference LLC in 2007, claims 1 million-plus monthly uniques; the small company says the investment will help it expand its audience and move into collegiate sites. FSV's Chris Russo told SBJ his company, which now has ownership stakes in 15 of its 330-plus network sites, hopes to do some custom marketing within the reference sites.
By Staci D. Kramer