Just one day after the management shake-up at Yahoo, the company’s board was called on to make a decision that had nothing to do with the resignation of Terry S. Semel as chief executive or the appointment of the co-founder Jerry Yang to succeed him.The board voted Tuesday to approve the acquisition of Rivals.com, an online network focused on college and high school sports, a deal the company plans to announce today.
The move is intended to bolster Yahoo’s position as an online destination for sports fans, where it competes with ESPN.com, Foxsports. com and others.
It is not a major acquisition. But Yahoo executives said buying another content provider underscores the company’s commitment to its media group, based in Santa Monica, Calif., whose strategy has shifted over time and whose future has been a subject of speculation since its chief, Lloyd Braun, left in December.
“We are very serious about leading in the media space,”
said Scott Moore, senior vice president for news and information at Yahoo.
“This deal will help us connect with the college and high school sports fan.”
Yahoo executives would not disclose the price of the acquisition, but individuals close to the company put it at around $100 million.
Yahoo hired Mr. Braun, a former ABC executive, in 2004, in part to set up a studio to produce original text and video content. But the scope of Mr. Braun’s ambitions were scaled back as he clashed over budgets with top executives at Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.
He left in December amid a company wide reorganization. Since then, other executives in the media group, including those who ran music, health and food Web sites, have left.
Since the departure of Mr. Braun, responsibility for the media group has been divided between Mr. Moore and Vince Broady, who is senior vice president for entertainment. Both report to Jeff Weiner, one of Mr. Semel’s protégés, who is responsible for much of the content and services on the Yahoo portal. The company is not seeking to replace Mr. Braun.
Mr. Moore said criticism of the media group was misplaced.
Yahoo has been bolstering its offerings, licensing content from a variety of top media partners like ABC, CBS and Fox. Yahoo is the most visited destination for news and finance, Mr. Moore noted.
In sports, Yahoo ranked second, with 15 million visitors, to ESPN.com’s 17.5 million visitors in May, according to comScore, a Web audience measuring firm, but its audience is growing at more than twice the rate than that of ESPN.com.
Full news at NYTimes.com
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