Yahoo Inc.
(
YHOO
) has announced a content and promotional deal with NBC Sports
Group, in line with its strategy of striking content-sharing
deals with major media brands. The financial terms of the deal
were not disclosed.
NBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television
network. The group broadcasts premier sporting events and a
diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL,
the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple
Crown, and the French Open, among others.
Per the deal, Yahoo! Sports, which broadcasts premium sports
news and events will be integrated into NBC Sports Group,
expanding the company's digital assets. Yahoo's fantasy sports
pages and its sites like Rivals.com, which focuses on college
recruiting, will also be promoted on the NBC network.
Additionally, Yahoo! Sports will be linked to live streams of NBC
sports broadcasts and develop web shows with NBC that will appear
on both websites.
However, the two sites will continue to be independent and
maintain separate newsrooms and editorial control over their
respective content. But they will collaborate on major sporting
events on both television and the web, thus increasing visibility
for each other with minimal investment.
The partnership is expected to benefit both companies over the
long term. The alliance will broaden the reach of both the
companies going forward. According to comScore, Yahoo! Sports
came in second to ESPN in November rankings with approximately 40
million online users while ESPN had 42 million visitors. However,
during the same month, NBC had only 11 million unique visitors,
which put it into the #8 position. Both the companies expect that
their traffic will be measured together, which will make them the
No. 1 sports website in the United States.
Good content is vital for a company serving ads as the number
of users it attracts is directly proportional to the ad revenue
it generates. We believe that Yahoo will continue to pursue this
kind of content sharing deals in order to boost its online user
base going forward.
Yahoo already has a number of content sharing deals with
companies like CNBC,
Walt Disney
's (
DIS
) ABC Television Group, Spotify and Clear Channel. Though its new
CEO, Marissa Mayer is focusing more on the company's product
developments, this partnership clearly indicates that Marissa is
not ignoring other growth areas and is looking to protect Yahoo's
share in the display and video ad market.
Yahoo has come out with better-than-expected third quarter
results with non-GAAP earnings up sequentially as well as year
over year and exceeding the consensus estimate by 11 cents.
However, a turnaround in the company's business still remains a
big task for the new CEO, given Yahoo's declining position in
display and search and the monetization issues related to
Microsoft's search platform. Yahoo also lags in several emerging
segments, such as mobile, social and the cloud.
Currently, Yahoo has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We note that its
archrivals,
Google
(
GOOG
) and
Microsoft Corp.
(
MSFT
) also carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) while
Facebook Inc.
(
FB
) carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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