Bloomberg L.P. And IMG Announce Joint Partnership For Bloomberg Sports

July 11, 2012 - PRLog -- Bloomberg L.P.  the world’s most trusted source of information for financial professionals and businesses, and IMG, the global leader in sports, fashion and media, today announced a landmark partnership designed to greatly expand and accelerate the growth of Bloomberg’s vertical division, Bloomberg Sports. The new venture will retain the name Bloomberg Sports, and will be funded through a partnership created by both entities.  

The new venture will still be majority owned by Bloomberg and will be located in offices in New York and London. IMG will have a strong minority equity position and will provide enhanced marketing, sales and production assistance for both the existing Bloomberg Sports analytics products, as well as a new series of projects that will be rolled out this summer. They will include new ventures in international professional soccer as well as greatly enhanced fantasy analytic products for NFL football. This will be in addition to the work the company is already doing in Major League Baseball both on the consumer and professional level. Other products and services are currently in development with additional professional and consumer sports brands which will be announced at a later date.

“We are very excited to partner with IMG, one of the most respected global leaders in sports and entertainment, to expand a business that was the brainchild of two entrepreneurial employees and incubated through Bloomberg in just two years,” said Dan Doctoroff, CEO Bloomberg L.P.  “That team, led by Bill Squadron, has created a great foundation, and we are now positioned for growth into other sports both domestically and globally, with the assistance of IMG’s expertise.”

“There are few, if any global business brands more respected than Bloomberg, and we are proud to be able to align with them on this new venture, which we think will take the core business that they have built in analytics and expand it exponentially on a global basis,” said Michael Dolan, Chief Executive Officer, IMG Sports and Entertainment. “The ability to effectively use data to analyze and enhance the experience in sport for fans and for professionals has never been more important than it is today, and there is no company that has proven they can do it better, more efficiently and effectively than Bloomberg Sports.”

Inner Circle Sports advised Bloomberg Sports on the transaction.

Bloomberg Sports’ “Front Office 2012” fantasy baseball product is again among the most used and innovative fantasy baseball tool for the consumer, while the company is now providing state-of-the art data analytic and player evaluation platforms for 24 of the clubs in professional baseball, as well as a quickly growing tablet product for players.

For more information on Bloomberg Sports, please visit bloombergsports.com and follow us on Twitter (@BloombergSports) and Facebook.

For more information on Bloomberg, please visit bloomberg.com/about and follow us on Twitter (@BloombergLP) and Facebook.

About Bloomberg Sports
Selected by The Sports Business Journal as a Finalist for “Best In Sports Technology”  and already named as one of the “Most Innovative Companies in Sports” in 2011 by Fast Company Magazine, Bloomberg Sports takes the technology developed by Bloomberg, the leading global provider in data and analytics, and applies them to the vast data analysis opportunities in sports.  Working with MLB.com and NFL.com since its launch in 2010, Bloomberg Sports fantasy products give fans the most powerful, easy to use resources as they draft and manage their fantasy teams.  Additionally, Bloomberg Sports provides a professional product that delivers Major League Baseball clubs with a secure, virtually unlimited set of analytical functions to assist them in personnel evaluation and game preparation, and provides a tablet application used by many MLB players. Bloomberg Sports has also created products customized for broadcast use, as well as professional tools for several professional baseball organizations in Latin America and Japan.
 
About Bloomberg
Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength – delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately - is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 310,000 subscribers globally. Bloomberg’s enterprise solutions build on the company’s core strength, leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively.

About IMG
IMG Worldwide is a global sports, fashion and media business, with nearly 3,000 employees operating in more than 30 countries around the globe. IMG's areas of expertise are diverse and wide ranging: IMG College is the leader in collegiate marketing, licensing and media rights. IMG's Joint Ventures, IMG Reliance, IMX, IMG CCTV and IMG Dogus, in the emerging markets of India, Brazil, China and Turkey, offer the company significant long-term growth opportunities. IMG Media is the world’s largest independent producer and distributor of sports programming. IMG Events and Federations owns and manages some of the most sought after events and includes long standing associations with the world's most important sports organizations, leagues, and federations. IMG Fashion owns and operates fashion events around the world and IMG Models represents the world's top models and leading designers. IMG Art+Commerce represents the most influential photographers, art directors and stylists.

CONTACT:  Joe Favorito/Bloomberg Sports
(917) 566-8345/ fatherknickerbocker1@yahoo.com

Jim Gallagher/IMG
(212) 774-4419/ jim.gallagher@imgworld.com