WebsiteClosers® presents a Digital Sports Media brand that started as a Facebook page and has quickly become an enormously popular online source for sports news. That growth has enabled this business to become a powerhouse source for digital advertising, as their blog was profitably monetized for ads that have brought in $2 million in the past year.
While the company started with a focus on local sports in Wisconsin, its increased popularity among sports fans and ability to generate high ad revenues enabled this business to create an increasingly larger virtual sports network with 5 domain sites covering major leagues, including the NFL, NBA, and MLB. While the business has stayed true to its original mission of maintaining roots in Wisconsin’s sports world, the company has demonstrated how a digital media brand built by sports fans can win over a very impressive number of sports fans, along with prominent advertisers eager to connect with those readers.
A lot of their growth can be attributed to talented sports writers on the team, and those writers are available to stay on post-acquisition. The company has effectively used an SEO program that focuses on keywords people are typing into search engines to capture more readers, and a social media marketing plan that has brought them 80,000+ followers to the original Facebook page.
Organic traffic is also being driven higher by a syndication deal with the local news app NewsBreak, which partners with thousands of local publishers to deliver vital content. The business has also monetized its licensed sports content and earned added passive revenue by posting its video content through the publisher dashboard STN Videos, a very high traffic volume site that posts 5,000+ daily videos from more than 250 of the most recognized names in sports, entertainment and lifestyle news.
This business now has major strengths that should excite an investor. There is a solid foundation in place providing a new buyer with strong domain authority, a loyal audience, a reputation for quality content, growing web traffic, and top-tier writers eager to stay on. With multiple sports verticals already launched, this recognizable brand is the ideal acquisition for a media-savvy buyer.
This is also a lean turnkey operation. The business is 100% remote and can be operated anywhere, operating in a highly lucrative and rapidly growing vertical. It’s estimated that most Americans get some of their news from digital devices, including both legacy news outlets and new sites that were launched on the web. Those sites attracting high volumes of readers have multiple ways to generate income streams, including advertising revenue, sponsored articles, affiliate marketing and selling products along with offering news. Digital advertising revenue across all digital entities keeps rising as millions of Americans turn to news sites daily. The high readership this brand enjoys, combined with its low overhead and efficient remote operations, make it highly scalable for a new owner.
This business is a great opportunity for a strategic buyer to acquire it and scale it rapidly. There are multiple good opportunities, including launching paid subscriptions to the five sites that would offer special perks and benefits to the subscribers, introducing affiliate partnerships, and using email marketing and SMS text messaging campaigns to attract higher levels of both sports readers and the advertisers eager to market to those consumers.
Business Broker Takeaway
We are excited about this business for 3 important reasons:
1. Strong Marketing. The owners have understood the power of social media in attracting readers to their sites. The original Facebook page that helped launch the news site has grown rapidly to now maintain 80,000+ followers, while the business also maintains 14,000+ followers on X (Twitter) and 7,000+ YouTube subscribers. The business has also been adroit at using SEO to drive organic traffic. With a careful selection of organic, competitive keywords that sports fans are using to find news they’re interested in, the brand’s SEO strategy continues to expand its customer demographics, which is impressing advertisers and news sites eager to get this business into syndication deals.
2. Breaking News Content. With highly skilled writers on board, the company is not only providing its readers with fresh content on a daily basis, but also giving them plenty of breaking news articles, literally the first shot at the most up-to-date sports stories. Their audience is expanding rapidly as the company expands its coverage to a rising number of professional sports leagues. Their websites now cover the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Boxing, MMA, Cricket, and Rugby, and more recently the coverage was also extended to Hardwoodheroics (NBA) and Homeplateheroics (MLB).
3. Fully Remote. This business is 100% remote, and has no physical assets, outside of the experienced team that generates the news content that has kept them growing into a well-respected source for sports news. The company’s expenses are minimal, and its ad partners and video partners pay for the ability to reach their readers. The sites are hosted on WordPress and are very easy to use, and no special skills are needed to supervise new articles on this popular content management system.
Conclusion
As a well-known and respected voice in both local and national sports, this business offers a new owner an opportunity to operate a prominent digital brand in the sports world. As millions of Americans increasingly get their news from digital devices, this company is one that is not expensive to maintain but has the steady recurring revenues to enable a new owner to scale it rapidly.
The quality content these sites have and proven SEO program that generates high organic traffic have given this brand clear growth potential. Now it’s up to a buyer to tap into those opportunities.
