ESPN Acquires Online Rugby Portal

LONDON, August 21: ESPN continues to expand its global
online business, today announcing the acquisition of scrum.com, a leading
online rugby news, scores and information portal, from Scrum Limited.

“Rugby has a global fan base,” said Russell Wolff, the
executive VP and managing director of ESPN International. “This acquisition
complements our coverage of rugby across our other platforms in key
territories, and is a natural next step for us. Serving sports fans online
around the world is clearly a focus of ours.”

ESPN has an agreement with the European Rugby Cup as the
exclusive telecaster of the Heineken Cup through 2010 in Latin America,
Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and North Africa. ESPN will air the
2007 and 2011 IRB Rugby World Cup throughout Latin America including exclusive
coverage in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.

The deal follows the acquisition of the cricket news and
information site Cricinfo in June, and the launch of French, German, Spanish
and Italian versions of the dedicated soccer portal ESPNsoccernet.com. ESPN’s
portfolio of digital media properties also includes the website ESPN.com, the
mobile wireless site mobile.espn.com, the online sports radio destination ESPNRadio.com,
a variety of fantasy games played by millions of fans each year, the premium
content web service ESPN Insider, downloadable sports content on the iTunes
Store, and a unique content integration platform appearing in many of the most
popular sports video games.