Playmaker Capital acquires Yardbarker for $24m
Deal includes Morning Bark, Yardbarker’s popular daily email newsletter.
Playmaker Capital, Inc., on Tuesday said it has acquired California-based sports and entertainment digital media business YB Media LLC, dba Yardbarker, for total cash and stock consideration of $24m.
Playmaker is a digital sports media company that intersects sports, gambling, media and technology.
Yardbarker is a sports and entertainment media platform that attracts more than 4m unique users per month and generates more than 9m total sessions across its primarily NFL, NBA, MLB, college sports and NHL content offerings.
Officials with Playmaker said in a statement Yardbarker’s comprehensive North American sports and entertainment focus and highly engaged fan base means the company now “represents an integral pillar of Playmaker’s growth ambitions and a strong platform from which it will continue to expand its US presence and build its global sports media ecosystem.”
The Yardbarker platform publishes some 25,000 full-text articles per month through a combination of its in-house editorial team and 125+ content syndication partner sites, while augmenting traditional coverage with a collection of more than 5,000 sports and entertainment quizzes and slideshows. Yardbarker said the content mix allows it to generate high engagement and interaction rates among its audiences.
The Morning Bark, Yardbarker’s daily email newsletter, reaches more than 350,000 subscribers with open rates in excess of 25%. The product features a Top 10 rundown of the most important stories of the day and a customizable newsfeed that allows users to keep track of their favorite sports, schools and teams.
Playmaker noted The Morning Bark is a significant driver of traffic to the website, and said it will serve as a low-cost, repeatable, first-party user acquisition tool.
Yardbarker was founded in 2006. Its three current owners are Jeff Kloster, Mark Johns and Ben Maggin.
“We believe Playmaker is in the process of building the next great collection of digital sports assets and we couldnot be more excited to be joining at this early stage,” Yardbarker CEO Ben Maggin said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Playmaker team to continue expanding Yardbarker’s reach and deliver the best possible service to our fans.”
Jordan Gnat, Playmaker Founder and CEO, added, “We are delighted to welcome Yardbarker to the Playmaker family. This is a US platform acquisition for us that is not only transformational, but also immediately financially accretive to our shareholders. Ben, Jeff and Mark have built a great business with incredibly loyal fans. Playmaker will be able to leverage Yardbarker’s content of all the key North American sports within our current Futbol Sites’ assets and vice versa. This is how we will build our ecosystem. We will cross-pollinate our various properties to provide all our fans globally with the best content on all sports.”
Transaction Details
Pursuant to the terms of a letter of intent dated June 7, 2021, and a purchase agreement dated July 26, 2021, Playmaker acquired 100% of Yardbarker for aggregate consideration of up to $24m.
The two parties said the purchase price consideration consisted of a payment of $10m in cash and the issuance of $8m of Playmaker common shares (“Initial Shares”) on closing, with an additional $2m of Playmaker common shares (“Contingent Shares”) to be issued to the sellers upon Yardbarker achieving a minimum EBITDA of $1.5 million within the 12-month period following closing and up to $2 million, payable to the sellers based on Yardbarker’s performance toward an EBITDA target of $2.5 million in each of the two years following closing.
For the 2021 calendar year, the two parties said Yardbarker is anticipated to generate revenue of approximately $5 million.
The acquisition of Yardbarker by Playmaker is a non-arms-length transaction and there is no finder’s fee to be distributed. Playmaker said it will not be assuming any long-term debt in connection with the transaction.
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