Agreement with Learfield Sports brings the official home of Wisconsin athletics on the Internet into the largest network of official online athletic partners in college sports
NEW YORK, Nov. 2, 2009 – CBSSports.com College Network today announced it has signed an interactive partnership with Learfield Sports to host and produce the University of Wisconsin’s official athletic website, UWBadgers.com, further strengthening its industry-leading network of official online athletic partners.
With approximately 200 schools, associations and conferences now under contract, CBSSports.com Network hosts the largest network of official online athletic websites in the business, bringing fans and alumni the most comprehensive and reliable college sports news, information and multimedia content. With the addition of Wisconsin and the recently announced agreement with the University of Michigan to produce MGoBlue.com, CBSSports.com College Network now produces nine of the 11 official athletic sites across the Big Ten Conference, as well as the official site of the conference, BigTen.org.
More impressively, CBSSports.com College Network now produces the official athletic site for 70% of all BCS football schools including four of the top five programs in the recently announced BCS standings: #2 Texas texassports.com, #3 Alabama rolltide.com, #4 Iowa hawkeyesports.com, and #5 Cincinnati gobearcats.com. (BCS Standings as of Week #10 – Nov. 2)
“Learfield Sports is pleased and excited to work with CBSSports.com College Network at one of our premier properties, Badger Sports Properties,” stated Mike Behymer, Senior Vice President of Product Development & Strategic Partnerships, Learfield Sports. “We appreciate the University’s willingness to partner with us on this venture.”
“We’re very happy with Learfield Sports’ selection of CBSSports.com College Network to serve as the host for our athletics department Web site,” said Justin Doherty, Assistant Athletic Director for External Relations, University of Wisconsin. “CBS Interactive is well-established on the college athletics scene and we look forward to working with their staff.”
Traffic to CBSSports.com College Network has seen recent growth with double-digit monthly gains across all metrics including increases in unique visitors (+88%), visits (+93%), minutes (+108%), and page views (+93%). (comScore Media Metrix, September 2009, U.S. Data)
In addition to Wisconsin, Learfield Sports manages the multimedia rights for more than 50 collegiate institutions and associations. It also represents the Big Ten Conference, and other Big Ten member schools Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Penn State and Purdue. It also titles the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup, oversees marketing partnerships for the Black Coaches & Administrators (BCA) and provides exclusive sports programming to more than 1,000 radio stations nationwide. Learfield Sports is an operating unit of Jefferson City, Mo.-based Learfield Communications, Inc., which made its initial foray into the world of sports marketing in 1975. For additional information on the company and its collegiate portfolio, visit learfieldsports.com.
About CBSSports.com College Network
CBSSports.com College Network is the leader in the production, management and hosting of official athletic websites, e-commerce solutions, streaming products and mobile services for colleges and universities across the United States. CBS College Sports currently produces a network of approximately 200 official athletic sites for schools including the University of Notre Dame (und.com), University of North Carolina (tarheelblue.com), University of Texas (texassports.com), and the University of Southern California (usctrojans.com). CBSSports.com College Network is also the official Interactive sports partner of the NCAA, producing and hosting the home of the NCAA on the web, NCAA.com.
CBSSports.com College Network is a unit of CBS Interactive, a leading online content network for information and entertainment. With more than 200 million people visiting its properties each month, CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Web property globally and the 5th largest Web property in the U.S. in terms of unique video viewers. Its portfolio of leading brands, which include CNET, CBS.com, CBSSports.com,
GameSpot, TV.com, BNET, CBS RADIO and Last.fm, span popular categories like technology, entertainment, sports, news and business.
More information about CBS and its businesses is available at cbscorporation.com.
Media Contacts:
Alex Riethmiller, 954.489.4235, ariethmiller@cbs.com
Posted on Monday, November 2, 2009