News Corporation’s News Digital Media division has acquired a minority stake in Melbourne-based online company Sporting Pulse, which provides IT tools for more than 180,000 community sporting teams.
Sporting Pulse, which was profiled on SmartCompany last year, was established in 1999 by Nick Maywald and has developed a suite of products that allow sporting organisations to run and manage their leagues and competitions. During the peak winter sporting season, the company has more than one million unique browsers per month.
While News and Sporting Pulse have refused to divulge financial details of the deal, it is believed News has taken a 25% stake. The Australian Football League is already a minority shareholder in Sporting Pulse.
Maywald says the company has received a number of approaches in the last 12 months.
“As our profile lifted we had quite a few different approaches, and we sat down as a board and tried to work out who would be the strongest partner.”
News was chosen for its close ties to community sport (particularly through the company’s community newspaper network) and the fact it could help Sporting Pulse make the transition from software company to media company without overly stretching the small company’s resources.
“We’ve got to make sure we don’t take our eye off the main game, which is helping local sport and local community,” Maywald says.
News will have two directors on the Sporting Pulse board.
“They are definitely a very hands-on investor, and really that was one of the criteria for us. We did a lot of due diligence on similar deals News has done, and in all cases they were considerably supportive of the company.”
News will also take over Sporting Pulse digital advertising sales efforts, although the company will retain control of its partnership and sponsorship efforts.
The handover of the digital sales function is part of a 100-day integration plan currently underway and Maywald is determined to make sure this process runs smoothly.
“There’s a lot of excitement in News around the Sporting Pulse business because of the links to the community. In some ways it’s a matter of making sure we don’t get too carried away with all that, it’s a matter of getting that integration right.”
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James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
