Digital sports content house Perform is buying up the Goal.com soccer site, as it looks to add a direct-to-consumer division to its business.
The site claimed 19.4 million January uniques, which it says makes it bigger than counterparts ESPNSoccernet.com, Football365.com and Teamtalk.com.
Perform will add to Goal.com its GSM data streams, Omnisport video news bulletins, ePlayer sports video highlights and Livesport.tv live streaming service – the company’s main products, which it sells on to news portals’ sites to give them video content.
The acquisition is from Goal.com’s investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners. The price wasn’t disclosed.
Mirror Group digital publisher Matt Kelly had been due to join Perform in January to spearhead a new division targeting audiences of sports fans directly, rather than through third parties. But he stayed with Trinity Mirror.
Instead, the Goal.com team will assume the same responsibility. Goal.com co-founder Michael Simpson now becomes Perform’s SVP for product and content. Jonathan Gamble becomes sales SVP. Goal.com CTO Scott Rothrock remains.
Online video specialist Perform holds contracts too numerous to list briefly. It holds numerous online sports rights itself, runs pay-for VOD sites for 79 Football League clubs and sells ads for PremierLeague.com and FLInteractive. It also serves sports video highlights on to the websites of newspaper and other partners.
With Goal.com, Perform claims to reach over 95 million people per month.