The Wall Street Journal reports that under the arrangement, Sports Illustrated, which is owned by magazine giant Time Inc., and Fox Sports, owned by 21st Century Fox, will share “significant” content, according to Rich Battista, president of Time Inc. Brands.
Meanwhile, the ad sales units from Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports will be able to sell advertising across both entities, and the two companies will share in the revenue. They declined to disclose specific financial details.
Combined properties operated by Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports brought in about 68 million unique visitors in July, which would make it the second-largest sports publisher behind ESPN, which brought in about 79 million visitors, according to digital measurement specialist comScore.
On their own, Fox Sports ranked third in the sports category in July, while Sports Illustrated came in 10th, according to comScore.
The deal comes as Fox Sports1, a network launched as a competitor to ESPN in 2013, retools its programming to focus more on personality and argument-driven sports shows. “As we’ve scaled back because we don’t believe in highlights and news as TV programming, that’s also created a little bit of a hole on the digital side,” said Pete Vlastelica, executive vice president of digital for Fox Sports.
Though they will remain separate websites, Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports will combine their comScore web traffic under a yet-to-be-named brand, which will be considered a part of Time Inc.’s overall traffic.
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