May 28--Gracenote, the digital and data arm of Tribune Media, on Thursday announced the acquisition of two leading sports data companies, Infostrada Sports and SportsDirect, and the launch of Gracenote Sports.
The new service will expand California-based Gracenote's offerings beyond music and video data, providing sports schedules, live scores, play-by-play stats and more to cable and satellite operators for their on-screen program guides.
"We can actually start putting scores, in real time, into those guides," said John Batter, CEO of Gracenote. "You can scroll through the guides and see different scores happening, even player stats, and actually drive tune-in to those stations."
Other applications include delivering live sports data to smart phones and alerts to car dashboards. In addition, Gracenote Sports will provide data services to a variety of online, broadcast and print media.
SportsDirect is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and provides sports data for the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and the NCAA. Clients include Thomson Reuters and USA Today, along with fantasy sports sites, sports books and ad networks.
Based in the Netherlands, Infostrada Sports focuses on the Olympics and European soccer data.
The total price paid by Gracenote for both companies was about $54 million.
Chicago-based Tribune Media acquired Gracenote from Sony of America for $170 million in February 2014. The growing entertainment data company started out by providing information on music tracks for Apple's iTunes.
rchannick@tribpub.com
