Gracenote pays $54M to buy sports data firms, launches Gracenote Sports

Gracenote, a prominent provider of metadata services to the pay-TV industry, has announced the $54 million purchase of to several sports data services and the launch of its new Gracenote Sports division.

Acquired itself by Tribune Media in December 2013, Gracenote is buying SportsDirect and Infostrada Sports, as well sports-betting data company Covers Media Group.

Gracenote, which already supplies pay-TV program guides with metadata on TV shows and movies, will now be able to provide sports programmers with schedules, scores, play-by-play stats, as well as team and player information for all of the major professional leagues including the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. Gracenote can also tap into the lucrative Olympics programming market. 

"Our clients have been asking for Gracenote to add sports data to the music and video solutions that we already provide worldwide," said John Batter, CEO of Gracenote. The acquisition of Infostrada Sports and SportsDirect will immediately position Gracenote to take a leadership role in the growing sports entertainment data market and will make Gracenote the only company to deliver a portfolio of music, video, and sports data."

SportsDirect is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is a provider of sports data and statistics for more than 50 leagues and 2,000 teams across the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), soccer, golf, auto racing and tennis. As part of the SportsDirect acquisition, Gracenote has also acquired the Covers Media Group, the operator of covers.com.

Based in the Netherlands, Infostrada Sports focuses on the Olympics and European football sports data with global and historical coverage for more than 250 sports, in 17 languages, dating back more than 100 years. 

Gracenote didn't break down what it paid for each asset.

For more:
- read this Gracenote press release

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