New York — AOL might be struggling, but in fact it is still trying to figure out how it can remain in business. In a major restructuring to the company’s Internet content division, the company has announced new content partnerships with “The Sporting News to deliver sports content, Everyday Health for health content and Move Inc. for real estate listings,” in an attempt to increase online ad revenues and cut costs.
Although no financial terms of the arrangements were disclosed, AOL plans to put content from the new partners front-and-center. The new outsourcing strategy comes just one week after AOL closed men’s lifestyle site Asylum and women-focused site Lemondrop.
The partnership announced with Sporting News will see AOL’s FanHouse.com become aol.sportingnews.com. Moving forward, beginning on March 1, Sporting News will assume all editorial and ad sales campaigns for AOL’s sports property. Users who click on the sports link on the AOL.com home page will be redirected to the Sporting News Web site.
For Sporting News, this partnership should render the esteemed brand with an immediate traffic thrust, helping it contend better with giants like Yahoo Sports and ESPN.com.
Furthermore, Sportingnews.com currently caters to about 2.9 million unique users, according to comScore, while FanHouse.com caters to a whopping 10 million unique users.
“This is the last piece of the puzzle for us,” said Jeff Price, Sporting News president and publisher. “Advertisers have told us that they love what we have done with our site over the past year in terms of video and social media, but they wanted reach.”
“AOL will be doubling down on our strategy in 2011,” said AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong, in a statement. “As part of that effort, we will be partnering with companies in areas that add strength to the consumer experience and drive profitability for AOL. The three deals we are announcing today universally improve AOL and allow us to build for the future.”
In addition another content partner Move.com will cover AOL’s real estate offering. AOL health will be replaced by the Everyday Health brand, though AOL will retain control of ad sales. AOL will also continue to produce local news and video content for the three sections.
Nevertheless, the move marks a greater shift in AOL’s strategy and, under the deal, Everyday Health will become AOL’s primary site for health and wellness information, taking over for the existing AOL Health. In addition, the company also plans to incorporate up-to-date property listings from Move Inc. into its product offerings, along with information about schools, neighborhoods, and property records, enabling real estate professionals to get more visibility through AOL Real Estate’s “millions of users.”
Interestingly, under the deal, The Sporting News will terminate at least 24 of Fanhouse’s existing employees, however, the company plans to absorb leading columnists such as Kevin Blackistone, Lisa Olson and Terence Moore, according to Sporting News president Price. Up to 70 full time freelancers will also face the chop.
Just two years ago, AOL made a lot of noise by restructuring AOL Sports as FanHouse.com, hiring a slew of prominent sports columnists to focus on premium content. CEO Armstrong still defends the decision. “The strategy has not changed” he says. “We believe these partners are going to be better at doing their core business than we are”.
Price said that the FanHouse.com brand would be incorporated into the Sporting News site at some point, and some columnists may be retained. “We’re going to work through that,” he said. “It’s still a fluid situation. But the AOL Fanhouse brand will absolutely live on.”
Lately, AOL has been in the process of transforming itself into a content-based business that generates its revenue through online advertising; recent high-profile acquisitions have included the controversial blog TechCrunch, along with firms like Brizzly, 5min, and Unblab, while divesting itself from social network Bebo after a high-profile acquisition in 2008.