LA JOLLA, Calif. – December 11, 2000 – Continuing to act as a strategic consolidator in the online participatory sports space, Active.com announced today that it has signed a deal to acquire Los Angeles-based eteamz.com.
The purchase of eteamz.com, a company that has established itself as the leading web community for team and league sports, will give Active.com definitive leadership in the league market with a combined product offering that includes high-end, high-utility web tools for league administrators and easy-to-use, engaging community tools for players, coaches and families. Active.com will also add 150,000 teams and over 10,000 leagues to its user base, while boosting site traffic to 30 million page views per month.
“Joining forces with eteamz.com allows us to more rapidly implement key components of our business plan," said Dave Alberga, president and chief executive officer, Active.com. “The acquisition cuts our time-to-market to zero for numerous projects we have in the queue and allows us to completely focus on reaching profitability in 2001."
As one of the top ranked, most trafficked sports sites on the Internet, eteamz.com has developed an online product that responds directly to the needs of players, coaches and families involved in team sports. According to Alberga, eteamz.com represents a perfect complement to Active.com’s existing ActiveLeagues offering and enables Active.com to extend its online registration capabilities to a new customer base while leveraging eteamz.com’s community tools across its events, leagues and park activities segments.
Brian Johnson, founder and president of eteamz.com, will lead the integration effort between Active.com and eteamz.com. As Active.com’s Vice President of Community, Johnson will relocate a core team to Active.com’s headquarters in La Jolla. Former Adidas America President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Wynne, who joined eteamz.com in June as chairman and chief executive officer, will assume an advisory role with Active.com.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to merge operations with a company that is clearly leading this space in terms of a proven revenue model, sound investment backing and market penetration in online registration," said Johnson, who founded the company and most recently served as eteamz.com’s president. “Our focus has been on understanding our customers’ needs and providing a market-leading product that creates a richer experience for the participants, families, coaches and fans involved with team and league sports. We now have a chance to bring this premier resource into a complementary environment built on strong business principles."
Under Johnson’s leadership, eteamz.com raised over $5 million, captured 150,000 teams in over 50 countries and earned a ranking of 13th most trafficked sports web site by PC Data Online. The most widely used online resource for the youth sports market, eteamz.com’s home-page building tools, skills instruction and coaching tips are used by high school, college and adult athletes worldwide.
As a full-service amateur sports community, eteamz.com has created an intuitive interface that bridges the gap between teams and leagues by facilitating streamlined communication. Within minutes, consumers can create their own custom web site including: schedules, scores and standings, team rosters, photos, local weather reports, directions to games and team news and message boards. Parents who also coach can access instructional tips and drills, coaching clinics, advice from experts, rule verification, bulletin boards, real time chat rooms, and more. eteamz.com’s web sites are free, easy to build and can be personalized by adding team colors, special graphics, animation and music.
“The two companies share a passion for participatory sports, an employee- and customer-focused culture and a team that represents the best talent in the industry," said Matt Landa, chief commerce officer, Active.com. “eteamz.com has developed a great, viral community product that has immediate appeal for anyone involved with team and league sports. We’ll be leveraging this community resource to maximize all of our revenue streams, including online registration, e-commerce, sponsorship and advertising."
With a greater than 90% market share of events using online registration, Active.com continues to lead the events and leagues segment, providing registration and data management tools for more than 20,000 events and league organizations, including established relationships with the United States Olympic Committee and multiple sports National Governing Bodies, as well as the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, the leading professional organization for college-based recreational athletics.
Active.com also has a deep stake in the parks market, launching ActiveParks.org early this year, a co-founded initiative with the National Recreation and Park Association. ActiveParks.org is a free, online service-based initiative uniting park and recreation professionals through a web resource that provides a database of local, county and state park and recreation facilities. The database will also allow the public to get online at www.active.com and search and register for facilities and programs at parks across the country.
Last month, Active.com merged with Sacramento, Calif.-based Sierra Digital, Inc. (SDI), a leading provider of recreation management software for park and recreation agencies. This merger will enable Active.com to offer online registration capabilities to SDI’s 1,000-organization customer base. Also this year, Active.com launched an e-commerce offering with the debut of its Active Sports Mecca store (www.activesportsmecca.com), a complete online destination for active lifestyle sports apparel, equipment and services.
Active.com’s announcement today comes after its recent closing of a $21 million second round of financing led by Deutsche Bank’s ABS Ventures. This latest financing round was preceded by a $15.5 million investment by Ticketmaster-Online CitySearch. To date, Active.com has raised approximately $52 million.
About eteamz.com
Recently named “Best of the Web" by Forbes Magazine, and a "Hot Site" by both USA Today and Sports Illustrated for Kids, eteamz.com (www.eteamz.com) is the premier online community for connecting players, coaches and families to the sports they love. eteamz.com brings the excitement of amateur sports to the Internet by providing free team, league and individual web sites, instructional tips & drills, communication tools, and e-commerce and services. eteamz.com continues to experience exponential growth in its membership, now boasting more than 150,000 registered teams worldwide and generating more than 22 million page impressions per month. For more information, visit www.eteamz.com.
About Active.com
As the leading online registration company for participatory sports and recreational activities, La Jolla-based Active.com (www.active.com) solves a perennial problem for event, league and park administrators by moving their inefficient, paper-based registration processes to the Web. The company was recently named, “Best of the Web" by U.S. News & World Report magazine. Through the company’s powerful set of data management tools, Active.com is saving event, league and park administrators time and money while improving their communications with participants. For participants, Active.com provides the most comprehensive worldwide database to find, learn about and register for sports and recreational activities online. The company has exclusive partnerships with sports national governing bodies and major Internet and media outlets. For more information, visit (www.active.com) or call (888) 543-7223.