Kelly's Blog
RotoHog to create, operate fantasy for Sporting News
By ERIC FISHER
Staff writer
Published June 08, 2009 : Page 27
See full article here.
Fantasy outfit RotoHog has struck a multiyear deal with Sporting News to power the media outlet’s suite of fantasy games.
Beginning with fantasy football this fall, Los Angeles-based RotoHog will develop and operate a set of free and fee-based fantasy games under the Sporting News brand for football, baseball, golf, hockey and motorsports. Of particular note is how the pact aims to extend Sporting News’ fantasy reach into social media and mobile networks, using technologies that allow assets from the games to be easily distributed from SportingNews.com onto platforms such as Facebook and the iPhone.
“In order to take our games to the next level, we wanted to align with somebody intensely focused on the space, was committed to a strong [business-to-business] solution, and wasn’t satisfied with developing the same old off-the-shelf products,” said Jeff Gerttula, vice president and general manager for online at Sporting News.
For RotoHog, the deal extends a run of activity this year that includes a somewhat similar deal with Fox Sports en Español, an alignment with ticketing outfit RazorGator, and the closing of a $2 million round of Series B venture capital funding. “This is a very strong testament to what we’re doing and the platform we’ve developed,” said Kelly Perdew, RotoHog chief executive. “We’re very excited to be partnering with an iconic brand like this and are pleased to be able to have good things like this happening in this economy.”