The multimedia communications group
Fininvest has taken
a minority shareholding in the
Sportal Network, which
runs top sites for some of the largest football clubs in Europe.
Fininvest and Sportal have been working together on
the official site of
AC Milan, an
Italian football team which is actually owned by
Fininvest.
Next month Sportal will launch multisport sites in
Italy and Spain and provide content for some forthcoming
Fininvest web sites. Sportal Network already runs official
sites for other leading football clubs such as
Juventus,
Paris Saint-Germain, and
Bayern Munich.
“We believe that Sportal can set the pace for web sports content
in both Italy and Spain, where Internet usage is intense,
but as yet confined to a comparatively small segment of the
population.” said Rob Hersov, CEO and founder of Sportal.
“The alliance with Fininvest will give us an
enormous advantage in reaching sports fans, whether they are
on the web, watching TV, reading a magazine, using a
wireless device, or at Milan’s San Siro stadium.”
Other synergies between the two companies include potential
benefits from reciprocal online and offline promotions.
The partners anticipate exposure generated by Mediaset
TV channels, Mondadori print media, and by
Jumpy,
Fininvest’s free access service, in Italy.
“This is an important step in our strategy of
building a leading European network of web properties
focusing on content and service development, that can
contribute to enriching our pan-European portal,” said
Mario Luzzi, CEO of Fininvest’s Internet holding company
Europortal Investments.
Fininvest has stated the objective of becoming a key Internet
player on the European market.