STATS and Sporting News Partner For Sports Annuals
Posted on June 28, 2002
The Sporting News and STATS, Inc., providers of sports statistical reference books, have announced a licensing arrangement to combine the best of each publisher's baseball, pro football and hockey titles into co-branded titles to be published by The Sporting News. These titles will be promoted across The Sporting News' print, electronic and radio properties.
STATS, Inc., a sports information provider, will supply data and content that will be integrated into TSN's guides and registers. The first titles to be released under the new arrangement will be co-branded versions of The Sporting News 2002 Pro Football Guide and 2002 Pro Football Register, due for release this June. Likewise, TSN's 2002-'03 Hockey Guide and 2002-'03 Hockey Register will include information from STATS, Inc.'s Hockey Handbook.
A full integration of content will be in place for the co-branded version of TSN's 2003 Baseball Register and 2003 Baseball Guide. The Sporting News will also publish future editions of STATS, Inc.'s Major League Baseball annual The Scouting Notebook.
"The partnership of the TSN and STATS, Inc. brands and content will allow us to provide the ultimate products for fans, be they fantasy players or information-seekers," said Kathy Kinkeade, Vice President, Operations for The Sporting News. "We look forward not only to reshaping our existing products into must-haves for consumers, but also to looking at new print and electronic publishing opportunities together."
"STATS, Inc. is extremely pleased to have furthered its long standing relationship with The Sporting News to where we are now partners in the sports annuals space," said Steve Byrd, Senior Vice President at STATS, Inc. "The Sporting News has long been an important client of STATS across their magazine, web and fantasy game properties so it made great sense for us to search for additional areas where we can combine the strengths of both companies. We've both enjoyed success publishing independently to the same market segment so we share great optimism about this venture as well as additional opportunities in the future."
The Sporting News, a division of Vulcan Sports Media, Inc., is a U.S. sports media company reaching 18 million people weekly. TSN's content is available through many sources, including a weekly magazine, books, a radio network and owned and operated stations, website, wireless devices and iTV. The Sporting News' books publishing division publishes approximately 25 titles annually, including 13 statistical reference titles.
STATS, Inc. is owned by News Corporation. STATS provides exclusive information and data from its proprietary databases to fans, professional teams, print and broadcast media, software developers and interactive service providers.