February 17, 2000
BELLEVUE (AP) -- Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures is buying The Sporting News from Times Mirror, the companies announced Wednesday.
The Sporting News, which will stay in St. Louis under current management, joins Allen's "Wired World" portfolio of investments in new media, entertainment and technology companies.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The package includes the print publication The Sporting News -- the nation's oldest sporting publication, published since 1886 -- and a line of annual preview magazines, high-end coffee-table sports books, sports-licensing ventures and www.sportingnews.com, one of the largest sports sites on the Internet.
Vulcan plans to offer content from The Sporting News to customers of its cable companies through one or more of its portal services.
"The value of strong, national brands to Internet audiences cannot be underestimated," said William Savoy, president of Vulcan Ventures.
"We look forward to integrating The Sporting News, with its long history of quality sports journalism and dedicated readership, into our media portfolio and extending the brand to entirely new audiences," he said.
The deal works well for Los Angeles-based Times Mirror as well, said Efrem Zimbalist III, its executive vice president, chief financial officer and chairman of Times Mirror Magazines.
"Our strategic review led us to conclude that The Sporting News must now compete in an environment in which sports-related print, television and Internet properties are increasingly linked together under common ownership," Zimbalist said.
"Vulcan is a growing force in the electronic media world and we are very pleased that The Sporting News will become part of Vulcan's expanding operations," he said.
James Nuckols, president and CEO of The Sporting News, said the sale gives his publication the chance to reach a larger audience in a variety of new formats.
Times Mirror -- which owns a number of newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and The Hartford Courant -- acquired The Sporting News in 1977.
Vulcan Ventures was founded by Allen in 1986. The group owns St. Louis-based Charter Communications, the nation's fourth-largest cable operating company with more than 6 million subscribers.
Allen, the multibillionaire co-founder of Microsoft, also owns the NFL Seattle Seahawks and the NBA Portland Trail Blazers.
