Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS) and Yahoo! Inc. have entered a multi-year strategic alliance that will allow the two companies to collaborate on advertising and sports-related content. Turner will exclusively represent online advertising sales for the NBA, golf and NASCAR pages of Yahoo! Sports. Additionally, Yahoo! Sports will gain access to basketball, golf and NASCAR content from NBA.com, PGATOUR.com, PGA.com and NASCAR.com, league sites managed by Turner. The deal was announced today by David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting Sales, Inc. and Turner Sports and Todd Teresi , senior vice president of Yahoo!’s Publisher Channel. The deal creates an alliance between one of the leading entities in the sports media industry and the #1 online sports destination, representing the new model for media outlets looking to increase and further engage their audiences.

All display, sponsorship and video advertising opportunities within the NBA, golf and NASCAR pages on Yahoo! Sports will be available exclusively through the Turner Network, which combines the digital resources of 19 Turner Sports, News and Entertainment properties. The agreement also provides Turner with access to advanced targeting technologies that will allow Turner to exclusively sell advertisements based on a consumer’s affinity for NASCAR, golf and NBA content, thus creating new advertising opportunities for clients. The agreement underscores Yahoo’s ongoing commitment to differentiating verticals online.

“Our relationship with Yahoo! provides tremendous benefits for our online consumers who will receive enhanced coverage of NBA, PGA TOUR, PGA and NASCAR news and events,” said Levy. “Aligning with Yahoo! Sports adds another dimension to our digital platforms and enables us to extend the distribution of content and advertisers’ marketing messages by leveraging each company’s national audience. We’re confident this arrangement will prove very beneficial to our advertising partners.” He added, “The strength of this league content combined with the extensive reach of Yahoo! Sports will make our respective properties the undisputed leader in market share of NBA, golf and NASCAR content on the Web.”

“By aligning with Turner and enabling them to extend Yahoo! inventory to sell to advertisers, we will engage the most targeted audience of sports enthusiasts available on the Internet,” said Teresi. “This announcement builds on our strategy to be both the starting point for consumers seeking the premier sports content, and to be the choice for leading Internet publishers looking to maximize their revenue potential. With the incomparable sports lineup Yahoo! Sports can now offer, as well as the massive size of our audience, advertisers will be able to deliver the most targeted, relevant marketing messages available at scale on the Web.”

Through this relationship, Turner will provide NASCAR, PGA TOUR, PGA and NBA properties to Yahoo! Sports with live and on-demand video, leaderboards and editorial content featuring some of the biggest names in sports. The content will enrich Yahoo! Sports’ current racing, golf and professional basketball coverage, which includes original reporting from award-winning journalists such as NBA writer Adrian Wojnarowski, auto racing writer Bob Margolis, and NASCAR analyst Ricky Craven. League sites NASCAR.com, PGATOUR.com, PGA.com, and NBA.com will also reap the benefits of successfully partnering with Turner through this Yahoo! agreement with increased exposure to a new audience of sports fans. The league sites will receive fixed placements on the respective NASCAR, golf, and NBA pages of Yahoo! Sports to promote certain league initiatives, further growing their brand exposure.

Opening the marketplace for Turner to sell advertising on Yahoo! Sports is part of a new publisher strategy that Yahoo! began implementing in October, 2007. The company’s goal is to work with publishers that are differentiated in their markets online to build an interdependent reseller network. Through this reseller network, advertisers can reach the audiences they want to communicate with at Yahoo!’s unmatched scale, plus presenting their audiences with relevant messages at the right time.

Source: TBS

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Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He is contributor to Baseball Prospectus, and is available as a freelance writer.

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