Sports.com To Raise Another $49 Million

Sports.com Limited
announced Monday that it was seeking a second round of funding to raise an additional $49 million.


The financing through the issuance of preferred stock will
represent around 23 per cent of the company’s post-funding valuation.


Sports.com is the leading provider of European sports content on the
Internet, and is especially strong in reporting UK football. Formed in May this year, it launched in August and now receives around 1 million page views per day.


The latest round of funding will be led by Sports Capital Partners, manager of the IMG/Chase Sports Capital funds, and affiliates of Soros Private Equity Partners LLC.


“In a very short time, Sports.com has emerged as the leading Internet-based provider of sports content in Europe and it is still in the very early stages of its development,” said David S. Moross, managing partner of Sports Capital Partners.


“We believe that our investment will provide Sports.com with the capital
necessary to execute its growth strategies and to realise its significant potential in the growing European sports marketplace.”


Majority shareholder in Sports.com is the U.S. company SportsLine.com,
which operates CBS SportsLine. It also produces the official league sites for Major League Baseball, the PGA Tour and NFL Europe League.


Other shareholders in Sports.com include IMG, Intel Corp., MediaOne Ventures and Reuters.


Sports.com operates several web sites in Europe, including
football.sports.com,
rugby.sports.com, and
france.sports.com.


Sports.com also acts as the official Internet media partner to
Manchester United, and provides
content to Netscape Online UK, ft.com, VoiLa (which has recently launched in the UK) and Wanadoo.


Sports.com says it will use the additional funding for expansion into other countries, additional sales and marketing and capital expenditures.

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