ESPN today announced the acquisition of scrum.com, a rugby news, scores and information portal. Launched in 1997, scrum.com has established a strong and growing presence among worldwide rugby fans.
“Rugby has a global fan-base,” said Russell Wolff, ESPN Executive VP and MD, ESPN International in a press release. “This acquisition complements our coverage of rugby across our other platforms in key territories, and is a natural next step for us following our acquisition of cricinfo.com in June and the launch of French, German, Spanish and Italian versions of ESPNsoccernet.com. Serving sports fans online around the world is clearly a focus of ours.”
ESPN has an expansive agreement with the European Rugby Cup as exclusive telecaster of the Heineken Cup through 2010 in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and North Africa. ESPN will air the 2007 and 2011 IRB Rugby World Cup throughout Latin America, including exclusive coverage in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
