Network18’s IBNLive.com had launched a new Football-focused brand called FootballNext in the previous quarter, the company has disclosed in its earnings results for the quarter ended December 31, 2014. This is IBNLive’s second sports-related brand after CricketNext was brought under IBNLive in February last year.
FootballNext says that it will offer latest news, photos and videos from various football leagues like English Premier League, Indian Super League, La Liga, Serie A, and UEFA Champions League. It also offers league standings and match schedules for the respective leagues. One can also head over to any specific league through the navigation bar to browse through stories, matches, photos & videos from that specific league.
Network18’s confused content rollout
We are not quite sure what are Network18’s plans for this vertical, although we do hope that they have one. Network18 has regularly changed its strategy over the years, launching sites and then shutting them or merging them with existing sites. As per MediaNama estimates, Network18 has launched as many as 29 websites till date, of which, only 9 are still live and independent.
Last month, business news portal FirstBiz was merged back to the parent site FirstPost, thereby continuing a long-standing tradition of playing musical chairs with its websites. Sources had told Medianama that this was done since the company did not want a portal that competed with its cash cow Moneycontrol.com. Tech2 was also moved from an In.com sub-domain to a FirstPost.com sub-domain in January last year.
Network 18 Digital CEO Durga Raghunath had also quit the company in July 2014 and in the following month, Moneycontrol CEO Joyson Thomas and IBNLive & CricketNext head Arunava Sinha had also left the company. It is also getting harder to track how Network 18’s digital content business is performing, now that it has stopped sharing financial information related to its digital content and commerce business, following its takeover by Reliance Industries.
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