Yahoo said today it is acquiring social sports site Citizen Sports in an effort to strengthen its strategy of aggregating and distributing social content online. Terms of the acquisition were not released.
"Yahoo! is in a unique position to combine our deep expertise in content and aggregation technology to offer a highly personalized social experience," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, Consumer Products Group, Yahoo!.
"Sports has been among the earliest online categories to experience rapid social proliferation, and the combination of Citizen Sports leading products with our world-class sports experience on Yahoo! Sports is a win-win for sports fans globally."
Citizens Sports offers users social and mobile applications to play fantasy sports, fill out brackets, check live scores and read news on sports including football, hockey, soccer, baseball, racing, ruby, hockey and cricket.
Yahoo Sports content will be integrated into Citizen Sports, creating a consistent experience for sports fans. On Yahoo Sports, users will be able to create or join a conversation with other fans and root for their teams via Citizen Sports’ applications.
Yahoo Sports is the most popular online sports destination with more than 39 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S. according to comScore. Citizen Sports’ network of popular applications for Facebook, MySpace, hi5, iPhone and Android, includes professional, college and high sports.
Citizen Sports was founded by Mike Kerns and Jeff Ma in 2004. Yahoo said its set to close the deal in the second quarter of 2010.