ESPN and The Wisden Group today announced that they had agreed to terms for ESPN’s acquisition of Cricinfo, the world’s leading cricket website. “Growing our business in the online world is vital for us to serve sports fans,” said Russell Wolff, managing director of ESPN International in a press statement. “Cricinfo is a tremendous property with a great fan base and it will be a strong addition to ESPN.”
The acquisition of Cricinfo enhances ESPN’s on-line portfolio, which includes ESPN.com; Spanish language ESPNdeportes.com and ESPNsoccernet.com, a football website. Cricket lends itself perfectly to online coverage: the length of matches and the statistics-rich nature of the game combine to drive high global usage and build loyalty. In April Wisden sold The Wisden Cricketer magazine to BSkyB.
ESPN’s digital media initiatives combine to deliver a combination of live and on-demand sports events; up-to-the-minute sports news and information; scores, statistics and analysis; extensive on-demand and downloadable video and audio programming; fantasy sports, and video games across Web, mobile and other non-linear platforms.
