Tristan O'Carroll, Media Week, 05 August 2008, 3:55pm

ESPN expands digital portfolio with Racing-Live.com

LONDON - Disney-backed sports broadcaster ESPN has made its third major digital acquisition in the past year, agreeing a deal to buy motor racing website Racing-Live.com.

ESPN acquires motoring racing website

ESPN has been focusing on building its digital offering and last year acquired rugby news website Scrum.com and cricket website Cricinfo.com.

Racing-Live.com covers Formula 1 (F1-Live.com), Moto GP & Superbike (Moto-Live.com), rally (Rally-Live.com), off-road rallies (Raid-Live.com), endurance sports cars and kart racing. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The site provides fans with locally-tailored news and information in English, French, Japanese, Italian, German and Spanish. Racing-Live.com attracts an average of three million unique users per month.

Russell Wolff, executive vice-president and managing director of ESPN International, said: Motor racing has a global fan base, and this agreement will allow us to serve fans more motor sports coverage than ever before.

We continue to build our online business through key acquisitions such as Cricinfo.com and Scrum.com, while expanding our current offerings, including fantasy and localized versions of ESPNsoccernet.com.

ESPN’s digital properties also include ESPN.com, mobile.espn.com, ESPNRadio.com and ESPN Insider.