The Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox Broadcasting Company has taken a 20 per cent stake in the Open Sports Network fantasy games website.
Fox will provide $20 million of online and on-air promotion across FoxSports.com on MSN, FoxSports.com, the Fox Sports Network (FSN) and FSN's owned-and-operated regional sports networks. Fox Sports chairman David Hill will also sit on the Open Sports Network’s board of directors.
Open Sports and Fox Sports will work together to develop new fantasy games and Open Sports will provide a backbone for offerings, such as Fox Fantasy Live for football, baseball and other sports. The deal also includes a revenue sharing component whereby the Fox Sports sales team will sell the new fantasy offerings in collaboration with Open Sports Network.
"Open Sports Network will unveil a suite of products through this additional round of funding, coupled with support by our new partner FOXSports.com," said Open Sports Network chairman and CEO Mike Levy.
In addition Open Sports has secured $4 million in venture-capital funding from its original team of private equity investors which it will use to build an exclusive product line across major sports.
