PA Sport invests in Australian Sports internet and information company

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PA SportsTicker's parent company, PA Sport, has further cemented its position as the world’s leading sports information provider by announcing an investment in the premier Australian sports internet and information company, Sportal Australia.

This deal means that PA SportsTicker customers in North America will have access to Sportal Australia's new generation of web-ready products. In return, Sportal will become the sales agent for PA SportsTicker's US sports content in their home territories of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Under the terms of the deal PA Sport will acquire 33.3% of Sportal Australia to gain the exclusive rights to commercialize and develop Sportal’s content and technical products and services outside their home territories of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Sportal has a proven track record of providing applications to display sports content on the internet and on mobile telephones; they have developed and own a world class sports focused content management system, designed to optimise the management and display of live scores and news content for sport on the internet and mobile telephones. The new investment will allow PA SportsTicker to market these web and wireless services to online publishers and mobile operators in North America.

PA SportsTicker, PA Sport and Sportal Australia also share a common approach to the development of sports information by focusing on sport governing bodies. PA SportsTicker has official relationships with the major leagues in the US including MLB, NBA and NFL. PA Sport has become the data partner of choice for many governing bodies including the English Premier League, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the South African Premier Soccer League (PSL). Sportal Australia has been similarly successful with online partnerships with Cricket Australia (cricket.com.au), the AFL (afl.com.au), the Football Federation of Australia (a-league.com.au), the National Basketball League (nbl.com.au), the All Blacks (allblacks.com), the New Zealand Breakers (nzbreakers.co.nz), the Australasian PGA Tour (pgatour.com.au), Australian Rugby Union (rugby.com.au), and the Melbourne Cricket Club (mcc.org.au and mcg.org.au) amongst others. Sportal also owns 100% of Champion Data, the official scoring and data provider of the Australian Football League (AFL).

The CEO of PA Sport, Chris Buckley, said “Australia is one of the truly great sporting nations. As PA Sport is the world’s leader in sports information we simply had to increase our involvement in Australia. Sportal was our natural choice as a partner because no one else can match them for relationships, reputation and innovation.”

Buckley continued “Sportal particularly stood out because they appreciate the importance of quality journalism and sourcing accurate information direct from the event rather than second-hand reporting. As these are central to our approach we are delighted to be able to welcome Sportal Australia into the PA Sport family.”

Chris Mutimer, CEO and Director of Sportal Australia, said “This deal is very exciting for Sportal. We can bring back to our shores the phenomenal North American sports content output of PA SportsTicker, as well as PA Sport's ouput across Europe and Asia. It also allows us offer the technology, tools and systems behind our web and mobile content delivery to a new audience in the United States. Secondly. We share with PA SportsTicker the same emphasis on quality, speed of delivery and integrity.“

About PA SportsTicker

PA SportsTicker is the primary instant sports news source for the ESPN television networks, ESPN.com, Yahoo!, CBS SportsLine, MSNBC, CSTV and the YES Network. It is also the official statistician for more than 20 professional leagues and associations.

PA SportsTicker delivers instant scores, breaking sports news, statistics, previews, recaps and features, gathered by more than 850 event-site reporters in the United States and more than 1,500 worldwide. It serves as the North American arm of PA Sport, which operates around the world with offices in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Thailand, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

PA SportsTicker was acquired by PA Sport in May 2006.

About PA Sport

PA Sport is the world's leading sports news provider and is part of the PA Group of information companies. At the heart of the PA Group is the The Press Association, the national news agency for the UK and Ireland, which was founded in 1868.

Using its network of more than 1500 reporters based across the world and 250 staff at its UK headquarters, PA Sport gathers, processes and delivers high-quality, comprehensive sports editorial, data, sound and pictures on more than 40 major sports around the world, much of it in real-time.

This information is delivered to a wide range of global customers across all media platforms and in different languages. Customers include newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, websites, telecommunications companies and the betting industry.

With its reputation for speed, accuracy and integrity PA Sport is also the partner of choice for many sport federations and governing bodies, including the English Premier League.

PA Sport is based in the UK and has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa and China. For more information visit: www.pa-sport.com

About Sportal Australia

Sportal Australia has over six years experience in delivering highest quality, database driven websites and technical solutions to various organizations involved in sport across Australia. Once launched Sportal provides the highest quality sports content, including news, match reports, previews, live scores, stats, audio and video, to provide its clients with comprehensive, breaking news capability.

Sportal has been entrusted to build major online sports websites for the regions largest media (NineMSN, Network Ten, SBS), telecommunication (Telstra, Hutchison. Vodafone AU and NZ,) and sporting (Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Corporation, AFL, AFL clubs, A-League, NBL, PGA, Cricket Australia and more) organisations. Sportal has respected this trust, by delivering all the services on time, on budget, and to the required standards.

Sportal Australia employs over 70 people with staff based in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. Sportal New Zealand was established in 2004, and now services the All Blacks, NZ Netball, NZ Cricket, NZ Breakers and more. Our websites are viewed by over 2,000,000 unique visitors every month and generate over 50,000,000 page impressions monthly (this includes client and Sportal websites).