PA Sport invests in Australian Sports internet and information company

PA Sport today further cemented its position as the world’s leading sports information provider by announcing an investment in the premier Australian sports internet and information company, Sportal Australia.

Under the terms of the deal PA Sport will acquire 33.3% of Sportal Australia to gain the exclusive rights to commercialise and develop Sportal’s content and technical products and services outside Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. In return, Sportal will become the sales agent for PA Sport’s content and services in their home territories of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

The two partners have long shared a common approach to the development of sports information by focusing on sport governing bodies. In this way PA Sport has become the data partner of choice for many governing bodies including the English Premier League, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the South African Premier Soccer League (PSL). Sportal Australia has been similarly successful with online partnerships with Cricket Australia (cricket.com.au), the AFL (afl.com.au), the Football Federation of Australia (a-league.com.au), the National Basketball League (nbl.com.au), the All Blacks (allblacks.com), the New Zealand Breakers (nzbreakers.co.nz), the Australasian PGA Tour (pgatour.com.au), Australian Rugby Union (rugby.com.au), and the Melbourne Cricket Club (mcc.org.au and mcg.org.au) amongst others. Sportal also owns 100% of Champion Data, the official scoring and data provider of the Australian Football League (AFL).

Sportal also has a proven track record of providing applications to display sports content on the internet and on mobile telephones; they have developed and own a world class sports focused content management system, designed to optimise the management and display of live scores and news content for sport on the internet and mobile telephones. The new investment will allow PA Sport to market these web and wireless services to online publishers and mobile operators around the globe.

The CEO of PA Sport, Chris Buckley, said “Australia is one of the truly great sporting nations. As PA Sport is the world’s leader in sports information we simply had to increase our involvement in Australia. Sportal was our natural choice as a partner because no one else can match them for relationships, reputation and innovation.”

Buckley continued “Sportal particularly stood out because they appreciate the importance of quality journalism and sourcing accurate information direct from the event rather than second-hand reporting. As these are central to our approach we are delighted to be able to welcome Sportal Australia into the PA Sport family.”

Chris Mutimer, CEO and Director of Sportal Australia, said “This deal is very exciting for Sportal. Firstly, it allows us to take the technology, tools and systems behind our web and mobile content delivery beyond Australia and New Zealand, to a global client base and a new audience. Secondly, we can bring back to our shores the phenomenal content output of PA Sport, covering European, North American and Asian sports. Finally, with PA Sport we know we have found a partner with the right fit, with the same emphasis on quality, speed of delivery and integrity.”

Contact Information

Elizabeth Castle

External Communications Manager

The Press Association

Contact via E-mail