Continuing its push into the exploding mobile space, Score Media has acquired U.S. sports app SportsTap – a former competitor to its ScoreMobile product – for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition significantly bolsters the Toronto media company’s presence in the key U.S. market.
“We’ve been making a really concerted effort and push in mobile since the early days of the platform,” said Benjie Levy, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Score Media. “We recognized early on that this was going to be a very important platform for all users, and especially our young users.”
Launched in 2007, the ad-supported SportsTap is available for both the iPhone and Android platforms, and is currently the third most popular app on the rapidly growing Android platform – right behind ScoreMobile – with more than 98% of its audience in the U.S.
Score Media will continue to operate SportsTap as a separate entity. Like ScoreMobile, SportsTap offers updated scores and statistics from professional sports leagues around the world.
The company is currently setting up a New York sales office to capitalize on what Levy characterized as the “tremendous” audience growth Score Media is experiencing in the mobile space. “We now have the critical mass to do that in the U.S.,” said Levy. “Really helping to broaden our reach was a key driver for [the SportsTap] acquisition.
Levy said that combining SportsTap’s reach with Score Media’s expertise in developing mobile-specific ad programs will enable the company to crack the lucrative U.S. ad market.
As an example of the innovative things Score Media is doing in the mobile space, Levy pointed to initiatives such as last year’s “Bud Bar Finder” – an add-on to the ScoreMobile app developed in conjunction with Labatt Breweries of Canada’s Budweiser brand that provided users with TV listings for live sporting events on major TV networks, as well as maps and distances to local bars where the games were available for viewing.
While Score Media doesn’t break out its revenues by division, Levy said that digital – including both online and mobile – currently accounts for about 15% of its overall revenues. The digital division is currently operating at a break-even rate, said Levy, although the company is currently investing “heavily” in the product. It is currently operating with a staff of about 50, split between developers, technical staff and sales staff.
Score Media offers a full suite of mobile applications, including its flagship ScoreMobile product as well as the soccer-specific ScoreMobile FC and TheScore iPad edition. The products have an estimated 10 million downloads, but Levy said that its monthly user base of 3 million unique users is more representative of the company’s growing strength in mobile.
According to comScore’s MobiLens March 2011 report, which ranks mobile sports app audiences in the United States, the combined monthly audience of ScoreMobile and SportsTap is third behind ESPN and Yahoo, ahead of competitors including FOX and CBS. An estimated 65% of Score Media’s mobile users come from the U.S. and another 5% from other markets around the world, Levy said. The remaining 30% are from Canada.
“We’re in the age of on-demand content,” said Levy. “That’s what underlying our strong push into the mobile space, because to be able to communicate on a two-way basis with users on a device that’s carried around with them 24 hours a day is something that’s extremely powerful.”
