AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

The Wall Street Journal

Sports Illustrated Group has reached an agreement with Citizen Sports Inc. to develop and promote sports-related Web content, including a fantasy-football game that will be played on the Facebook Inc. Web site.

The move is, in part, an admission by the iconic sports brand, owned by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner Inc., that it needs to do more than draw traffic to its own Web site. It also needs to take its products to a site people already visit.

As part of the agreement, closely held Citizen Sports, of San Francisco, will develop the software for the fantasy game. The Sports Illustrated sales force will sell advertising to accompany the game, and the magazine will make articles by its writers available to players. The game is expected to launch in July.

In fantasy sports, people pick teams made up of real athletes. Players win or lose depending on how well the athletes they chose perform in different statistical categories.

Ken Fuchs, vice president and general manager for SI Digital, Sports Illustrated’s online operation, says that rather than competing head to head with other sports sites to attract visitors, he wants to take his content to the places where sports fans already are. “We want people to come to our site, obviously,” Mr. Fuchs says. “But we recognize there’s an opportunity to reach people where they interact.”

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