SportsLine Snatches Football Back From Daily Mail

SportsLine Europe will not renew its affiliation with
the Daily Mail, having supplied most of the content for the
Mail’s SoccerNet over
the past two years.

The majority-owned subsidiary of
SportsLine USA,
announced Thursday that it plans to create the “world’s most
comprehensive soccer site” and run it independently as part of
its network of European sports sites.

“Combining the real-time scoring of Infosis Sport, the editorial
content of SportsWeb and SportsLine’s own unique features will
enable us to create an unmatched site,” said Tom Jessiman, managing
director of SportsLine Europe.

“With our learning experience from producing a top-notch soccer
site, we have already generated the most soccer revenue of any
Internet company through advertising, fantasy and e-commerce.
SportsLine Europe’s new fully-owned soccer site will be a fan
favourite in Europe.”

The move will come as a blow to the Daily Mail, which has been
been one of the pioneers of Internet-related business in the UK,
with such sites as the UKPlus
directory. The new SportLine football site will launch in early
August in time for the coming season and will include expanded
soccer coverage throughout Europe.

In May this year, SportsLine Europe acquired
SportsWeb, a leading
European sports site, from Reuters. More recently, it
purchased Infosis Sport, a provider of real-time scores,
statistics, match reports and features.