ESPN acquires Cricinfo from Wisden

New Delhi, June 11 (UNI) Walt Disney's ESPN, the leading sports entertainment company today expanded its online offerings by acquiring popular cricket Website Cricinfo from Wisden Group, ESPN and Cricinfo said in a joint statement.

ESPN, which features the broadest portfolio of multimedia sports assets with over 50 business entities widens its online portfolio with the acquisition of Cricinfo, which is the world's leading cricket website.

This was announced in a joint statment by ESPN and Wisden today.

''Growing our business in the on-line world is vital for us to serve sports fans and Cricinfo is a tremendous property with a great fan base and it will be a strong addition to ESPN,'' said Russell Wolff, Managing Director of ESPN International.

Wisden, however, said it will continue to focus on its Hawk-Eye sports-technology business ''in cricket, tennis and a growing range of other sports.'' Tom Gleeson, Managing Director of Cricinfo, said ''We have had a strong working relationship with ESPN for a number of years and we know how successful they are in providing innovative online sports content.

''We look forward to working with the ESPN team and drawing on its expertise in sports marketing and digital media.'' Founded in 1993, Cricinfo has built on the combination of live ball-by-ball coverage of all Test and ODI matches, news and features written by some of the world's best cricket writers, and in-depth statistics on every one of the 3,000 international and 45,000 first class cricketers to have played the game.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

The Wisden Group bought Cricinfo in 2003.

Based in London, the website reaches more than 7 million users every month.

ESPN with a tagline 'The Worldwide Leader in Sports', already operates ESPN.com, ESPNdeportes.com, a Spanish-language sports site, and the English-language ESPNsoccernet.com.

ESPN is 80 per cent owned by ABC, Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.

UNI