CNBC's Rovell: Yahoo to Acquire Rivals.com
Yahoo said it will acquire Rivals.com, the network of roughly 150 college sports recruiting and high school Web sites. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
It marks a fabulous rebirth for the Web site, which went bankrupt in 2001 after its advertising model failed. Revenues grew when Rivals.com adopted an advertising plus monthly subscription model, the same model that was used by its competitor Scout.com.
Scout.com was sold to Fox in 2005 for a reported $60 million.
Rivals.com, based in Brentwood, Tenn., has 185,000 subscribers that pay either $9.95 monthly or $99.95 a year. Sources say that 2006 revenue totaled more than $20 million.
Rivals was being shopped around for about six months and had multiple suitors.
The acquisition should immediately boost traffic for Yahoo Sports, which currently ranks second to market leader ESPN.com.
Rumors of the Rivals-Yahoo deal were first reported by the Web site paidContent.org in April.
