Ukbetting last week took a major step toward becoming England's leading online sports content provider through by purchasing one of its biggest competitors, Rivals, for £2 million.
Through the deal, Ukbetting will take ownership of Rivals' six Internet sites, including football365.com.
The purchase is latest and largest in a string of acquisitions through which Ukbetting has been taking over sports content businesses. The deal was proceeded by buyouts of Sporting Life, TEAMtalk and Sportal.
Through these acquisitions, Ukbetting has grown its sports content business significantly since floating on England's Alternative Investment Market in August 2001. Its sports content revenues skyrocketed from £402,000 in the half-year to June 30, 2002, to £3.5 million for the same period in 2003. The company reports to have over 4 million users a month on its various sites.
Peter Dubens, Ukbetting's executive vice-chairman, said the Rivals acquisition will also help the company in the expanding mobile betting space.
"The acquisition strengthens our position in the provision of sports content, both online and for the mobile phone industry," he said. "We are now among the largest independent online sports information providers in the U.K."
The purchase is also part of an approach in which Ukbetting has opted to acquire technology, especially when the price is right, instead of developing it in house. For example, the group nabbed Sports.com in 2003 for £670,000 as part of Sports.com's move into receivership. It also paid an undisclosed amount for the operating rights for the Sports.com URL and domain and later contracted U.S.-based Sportsline to operate the site.
Rivals was formed via the merger of Rivals.net (owned by Chrysalis) and 365 (owned by Eckoh) in December 2001.
After struggling early, the merged company turned its first profit in late in 2003.
Dubens said visitors to the Rivals Web sites will notice very few differences in the near future. Ukbettting will analyze each site and determine how the content can best be integrated into the Ukbetting family. No changes will seen until the second half of 2004.