Yahoo is rumored to be close to acquiring the college sports network Rivals.com according to paidContent’s Rafat Ali. At an expected $100 million, Rivals.com would be the largest sports media oriented acquisition by Yahoo.
Rivals.com, currently a Yahoo media partner, is a college sports portal which coverages high school recruitment and offers team-specific coverage on each college’s sports teams, especially basketball and football.
Rivals.com drives what we call “The Ultimate Fan Experience” by integrating its exclusive expert content into a network of team-based sites with message boards and various community tools that encourage and result in ever-increasing fan knowledge and involvement.
Yes, this could be seen as another Ya-Hiccup acquisition in the shadow of Google’s mega buyout of DoubleClick.
The Rivals.com rumor does however follow a similar Yahoo pattern of acquiring content driven loyalty outlets which can be easily integrated into the Yahoo formula and also attract more users into the Yahoo social experience.
