DBG acquires Digital Sports Ventures

DBG's first acquisition to mark change in company's approach to video production

DBG, one of the biggest creators, producers and distributors of premium video content across digital media, is seeking to expand its library of premium video content.

Tuesday's announcement that it has acquired Digital Sports Ventures (DSV), a multimedia sports content platform that delivers premium college sports video for websites and mobile devices, fits right in with DBG's vision, which is to provide publishers with premium content on a much larger scale. This according to DBG’s Chief Product Officer Matthew Corbin, in a recent chat with me.

This acquisition is the first for DBG and marks a turning point in the company's expansion plan. As of today, DBG delivers branded videos to an audience of 175 million consumers with premium publishing partners and Web programming.

Most recently it has created and produced original branded videos for the likes of Infiniti, Coca-Cola, BMW, and Sex and the City.

The acquisition of Digital Sports Ventures, the official syndicator of Division I college sports video across the Big 12, Pac-10, Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Mountain West and Conference USA, translates into an added network of 2,600 publishers. 

By integrating Digital Sports Ventures’ portfolio of publishers, which includes McClatchy, The Seattle Times, and The Detroit News, DBG will now be able to get much coveted premium sports content, and add millions of viewers, which in turn could attract bigger sports organizations as advertisers.  

As Corbin told me, DBG expects to stream 100 million videos monthly across nearly 300 websites and reach approximately 10 million consumers each month. 

For years, Digital Sports Ventures has created and distributed premium sports video content that has been leveraged by a wide variety of publishers ranging from McClatchy to the Seattle Times to the Detroit News. By adding DSV to DBG’s Content Library Platform (CLiP), we will expand our reach and diversify our content offering – we are expecting to stream 100M videos monthly across nearly 300 websites, reaching approximately 10M consumers each month.  

What is CLip?

CLiP is short Content Library Platform, which we introduced this fall. The idea behind DBG’s CLiP is to assemble carefully curated verticals (or channels) of premium content. Publishers can then take a CLiP player loaded with content from a specific vertical and embed it on their site.  DBG then sells pre-roll against the inventory of content and shares the revenues with the publishers and content creators leveraging the platform.

What other company are you interested in?

While we cannot comment with any level of specificity, we’re still certainly in the marketplace and keeping our eye on companies that may make sense given our current plans. We are exploring these opportunities but cannot elaborate any further at this time.

You spoke to me of "revolutionizing' the way video content is produced and syndicated for publishers across the Web.  What kind of "revolution" are you planning?

We believe that with our content syndication efforts, namely the DBG CLiP program, which the world of online video is quickly heading towards the era of the empowered publisher. Now, publishers everywhere will have the ability to distribute premium video content, a resource that until now has been scarce in our industry. Having that piping and bringing that premium content to viewership across a multitude of verticals will be key to our efforts.

How will it be different than what is available already?

There’s a scarcity of distribution of premium content across along the ecosystem. There’s plenty of user-generated content in the marketplace but there’s a scarcity of premium content in the marketplace and that’s what we’re addressing.

How does this fit with your existing business?

It accelerates our efforts around CLiP and content distribution and increases our sports vertical which we were beginning to focus on in more detail.

What kind of new pre-roll opportunities for advertisers of all sizes does this acquisition means?

The access to pre-roll inventory on publishers sites where video inventory did not exist before. We are empowering publishers with a new video experience and premium content that is relevant to their vertical and relevant to their page.

 Is this DBG’s first venture in sports content?

We have worked to launch sports vertical and this is our first big push into that specific vertical. We’ve had content before, but this is the beginning of the creation of a rich library of sports content.

Can you share with VatorNews' readers, what your expansion plan might look like? Are you planning to expand your market reach outside the U.S.?

Well, at this point we do not have firm expansion plan into foreign markets but yes, we are looking at various possibilities for 2012. Coming from Google, I am certainly more than aware of the huge video consumption in Latin America, especially in the sports segment. Think of Brazil, specifically in São Paulo, with huge "football" fans base - what we call here soccer - and there is definitely an interest from DBG to launch into those markets. But no firm plans as of today.

And finally, what at are the terms for the acquisition?

We cannot disclose the terms of the acquisition at this time.