M&A activity for sports media websites has been strong for as long as the internet has been around.
Over time, the prices for these assets have gone up considerably due to things such as betting, fan growth, diversified revenue streams, etc…
My bet?
They’ll only continue to get bigger as sports continue to expand globally.
Here are 10 of the biggest deals done throughout the history of the industry:
10) Minute Media buys The Players Tribune from Derek Jeter.
Although the price was not officially disclosed, Minute Media was able to acquire one of the premier athlete-driven media platforms with this deal. Founded in 2014 by baseball legend Derek Jeter, the New York-based company raised around $58 million in total throughout the five years leading up to its acquisition.
Investors included IVP, Alphabet’s GV (formerly known as Google Ventures), Thomas Tull (former CEO of Legendary Entertainment), New Enterprise Associates, GenTrust, and dozens of individual athletes.
9) Minute Media buys Fansided for around $15 million.
Minute Media has made many acquisitions within the sports media space throughout the years. With aspirations to build one of the biggest audiences in sports, this purchase helped move the needle in the right direction. FanSided has been one of the fastest-growing platforms of sports and lifestyle digital properties.
At the time of the acquisition, which was in January 2020, Fansided had more than 300 destinations focused on specific professional sports teams, college sports, lifestyle trends, and more. The website, which operates as a standalone, generates tens of millions of unique visitors per month.
8) BetterCollective buys Playmaker for $54 million.
Playmaker HQ is one of the most prominent social-first sports brands. With a following of over 20 million followers across Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, Playmaker HQ’s content reaches over 500 million people per month. But to qualify for the full earn-out payment, Playmaker HQ must achieve a minimum of $75 million in accumulating revenues and $25 million in accumulating operational earnings within the first three years after the acquisition.
Nonetheless, Playmaker HQ has several strong strategic partnerships with renowned brands in sports apparel and fast-moving consumer goods and a solid positioning in the industry.
7) Yahoo buys Rivals for $100 million.
Shannon Terry co-founded Rivals.com in June 2000 and it quickly became the leading Internet site in college sports, high school sports, and college recruiting. Terry has quietly built a hall-of-fame-worthy career in the college recruiting scene launching other sites such as 247sports and On3.com.
His businesses are simple and pretty much all follow the same model. Dominate a niche within college sports. Drive readers and build an audience. Charge a nominal fee for exclusive access and content.
Seems to be working well so far.
6) Turner buys Bleacher Report for $175 million.
In August of 2021, co-founders Bryan Goldberg, Dave Nemetz, David Finocchio, and Alexander Freund struck gold when they sold their then-7-year-old sports startup to media giant Turner.
Bleacher Report was one of the first sports media brands that challenged ESPN and approached sports coverage from a unique standpoint.
While they struggled to gain popularity and profitability through the first few years, the company took off and had hockey-stick-like growth which ultimately led to this major acquisition.
5) Better Collective buys The Action Network for $240 million.
The Action Network, which was originally founded and launched by The Chernin Group, has quickly become one of the top sports betting media websites.
With news, analysis, and education, it has built an enormous audience of sports bettors across the world. After just four years, solidifying major partnerships and syndication deals along the way, they were bought out by publicly traded digital sports giant Better Collective.
4) Spotify buys Bill Simmons’ The Ringer for $250 million.
Bill Simmons is one of the sports media industry’s most notable figures. When he left ESPN to start his pop culture and sports media platform, there was no doubt that it would take off.
With The Bill Simmons Podcast headlining, the website managed and distributed over 30 shows around a wide variety of topics including movies, food, and gambling.
In just four years of existence, Spotify paid a whopping $200 million + largely in part of their big bet on audio being a primary driver of media consumption.
3) NYT buys The Athletic for $550 million.
The Athletic burst on the scene in 2016 as one of the only subscription-first sports media platforms.
Founded by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, its whole premise was based on the thought that fans, and sports industry professionals would pay a monthly price to have access to premium, exclusive sports stories and content published by well-known writers in the industry.
Pushing the typical ad-revenue business model aside, the company raised millions to support its vision and even launched out of the legendary Y Combinator accelerator.
After years of unprofitability and high expenses, they were eventually bought out by The New York Times who outbidded several other notable contenders.
2) Penn National Gaming, buys Score Media and Gaming Inc. (theScore) for $2 billion.
Sports betting is BOOMING and theScore is one of the primary outlets in the space.
theScore, which is Canadian-based, developed a state-of-the-art player account management system and is finalizing the development of an in-house managed risk and trading service platform.
Through this purchase, Penn gained access to theScore’s 4 million daily active users. One-third of these users were in Canada, where sports betting is limited to parlay bets, and two-thirds of users were in the US across Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, and New Jersey.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
1) Dave Portnoy buys back Barstool Sports for $1.
While not the biggest price on this list, it’s probably the most historic for sure. Barstool was originally purchased by Penn Gaming for around $550 million. However, after issues with gambling regulation, Penn decided to partner with ESPN to rebrand the online sports-betting business from Barstool Sportsbook to ESPN Bet.
Under the terms of the deal, Penn paid $1.5 billion in cash to ESPN over a 10-year term and gave ESPN approximately $500 million in warrants to purchase $31 million Penn common shares that will vest over 10 years in exchange for media, marketing services, brand, and other rights.
This also allowed sports personality Dave Portnoy to buy back Barstool for what was reported to be a $1. Penn does retain the right to earn 50% of the proceeds should Portnoy ever sell or monetize Barstool in the future.
