Northcliffe news group builds local sports website network

Posted by Mica Swyers on June 18, 2007 at 2:12 PM

To usher in the new season, Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND) will soon launch websites devoted to football and rugby clubs that are covered by the group’s titles. With this network of sports websites, AND hopes to accrue revenue by taking advantage of national advertising and the teams’ fan bases.

The 19 sites will supplement The Derby Evening Telegraph’s site for The Rams and The Leicester Mercury’s site for the Blue Army. With the network launch, AND will thus give its own papers the opportunity to locally own a “thisis” website for their corresponding team. Such sites which had previously been managed only from central locations in Derby and Exeter.

The AND sites, which will be fully managed by the local Northcliffe news centers, will feature team news and information, in addition to fan forums. Robert Hardie, managing editor of AND, hopes to gain a larger advertising profit with the Northcliffe network. He hopes that each site will become “the best unofficial site for each club” to capitalize off fan loyalty to both official and unofficial websites for sports information.

Source: Hold the Front Page