News Corp has acquired Melbourne company Vapormedia, the technology group behind fantasy sports franchise SuperCoach.
Commercial details haven't been released.
SuperCoach currently runs games across AFL, NRL, BBL and NBL and the acquisition opens opportunities to open new games for the NBA, NFL and Formula 1.
Mark Reinke, managing director and publisher, state and community mastheads, said SuperCoach delivers hard-to-reach audiences and unlocks a raft of new commercial opportunities.
He said SuperCoach has enjoyed stellar growth over the past year to 430,000 registered players who spent an average of 173 minutes on the platform in May which is in addition to the 700 million page views a year.
Reinke said the fantasy sports sector has experienced strong and sustained growth among the key under-40 sports fans segment in Australia, rising 18% last year from 8% in 2021.
“There’s room to grow that demographic by offering new season-long formats and exploring new codes, and we believe plenty of other opportunities can also be tapped,” he said.
“We have a large 18-25, predominantly male audience but we see a lot of interest from other, particularly female audiences interested in shorter form games and other franchises that we now have the flexibility and resources to investigate fully.”
Mr Reinke said given the size and engagement of the audience, valuable integration opportunities exist for commercial partners to bring new value to the community.
“Make no mistake, the SuperCoach franchise is a series of large, growing, and uniquely engaged and passionate communities, but we have just scratched the surface,” he said.
“It really is more than a game and bringing the expertise in-house will enable deeper collaboration with the thriving ecosystem of SuperCoach content creators across social media, podcast and video platforms.”
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