The Walt Disney Company, home of Mickey Mouse and Pirates of the Caribbean, yesterday agreed to buy Cricinfo, the cricket fans’ website, from the Getty family for an undisclosed sum understood to run into tens of millions.
Set up by British cricket afi-cionados, Cricinfo was rescued by the Wisden Group, publishers of the cricketing bible, in 2003 in a £2.7 million deal. But Wisden, now owned by Mark Getty, decided that the business would best be owned by a broadcaster.
Cricinfo attracts about seven million unique visitors a month and its commercial prospects have improved significantly since it posted a £65,000 loss in 2006. However, it controls no rights and relies on public domain information for its scores and editorial.
The Wisden Group believed that Cricinfo would need to own video material to maintain its audience and was reluctant to get into a bid battle with deep-pocketed broadcasters. After running an informal auction, Mark Getty and the company opted to sell to Disney.
Walt Disney is barely known as a sports broadcaster, let alone as the home to cricket in the UK, although the company owns ESPN, the largest American sports broadcaster.
Both Disney and ESPN are keen to expand in India, the most lucrative cricket market in the world, and the website will make a valuable adjunct to ESPN Star, a joint-venture Asian sports broadcaster co-owned with News Corporation, parent company of The Times.
Last year Cricinfo moved its small operation of just over 20 staff to Bangalore.
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