MVP.com Tuesday signed a 10-year deal with sports media site SportsLine.com Inc. worth $120 million.
The new sports destination will pay SportsLine.com Inc. (SPLN) $120 million to be an exclusive e-commerce partner. MVP.com also received an unspecified equity interest in the CBS SportsLine subsidiary.
MVP.com was created in partnership with Benchmark Capital, Freeman Spogli &
Co., Galyan’s Trading Company, retired John Elway, Michael Jordan and Wayne
Gretzky. SportsLine Founder and CEO Michael Levy will serve on the board of
directors of MVP.com, which includes Elway as the chairman, Jordan,
Gretzky, Benchmark partner David Beirne, Freeman Spogli partner Ron
Spogli and former Sears, Roebuck & Co. Senior Executive Vice President John
Costello, who has been appointed chief executive officer.
MVP.com will also receive $85 million in advertising, over a period of four
years from CBS Corp. in exchange for an
equity stake.
Scheduled to launch this January, MVP.com’s new shopping site will offer
expert advice and insight from the world’s future Hall-of-Famers in Elway,
Jordan and Gretzky, along with a huge selection of professional sports and
fitness equipment and apparel. The MVP.com advisory board will provide tips
on picking the right gear, improving performance, training, strategy and
other useful information.
Under the proposed terms of the agreement, MVP.com will acquire and assume
all responsibility for, and cost of operations of the co-branded stores
“We intend to put the same effort into this venture that we put into our
athletic careers, in hopes that it will result in great success and growth
for MVP.com,” Gretzky said. We are approaching MVP.com as a team effort,
and I very much look forward to working with John, Michael, and the rest of
the new company.”
SportsLine.com includes more than 400,000 pages of multimedia sports
information, entertainment and merchandise.
In September, SportsLine.com bought TennisDirect.com in a $770,000 stock
deal to offer consumers a line of about 10,000 tennis products in addition
to an extensive assortment of merchandise and memorabilia.
