Nazara subsidiary Absolute Sports to buy assets of Soap Central for $1.4 million

Absolute Sports currently operates Sportskeeda and Pro Football Network

Absolute Sports, the subsidiary of Nazara Technologies which operates sports media brands Sportskeeda and Pro Football Network, is acquiring all the assets of SoapCentral.com, a US entertainment content destination, for Rs 11.6 crore ($1.4 million) in an all-cash deal.

The acquisition bolsters Absolute Sports' presence in the entertainment publishing sector in the United States. The company already operates a pop culture destination called SK Pop, that provides latest news and trends related to K-POP (Korean Pop) and Korean media.

This is the second acquisition for Absolute Sports in the United States after the purchase of sports media firm Pro Football Network for Rs 16 crore ($1.82 million) in March 2023.

The company said it will be using its cash reserves to fund this acquisition that is expected to close in the next 30 days.

"The entertainment publishing industry is more than twice the size of sports publishing and allows us a great canvas for expansion into multiple content categories,” said Ajay Pratap Singh, CEO of Absolute Sports.

“Having tested our content publishing and hyper-growth playbook with the acquisition of Pro Football Network last year, we are confident of scaling Soap Central in a very short time" Singh said.

Soap Central was started by Dan J. Kroll in March 1995. The website focuses on US television shows, providing the latest news, comprehensive daily recaps, sneak peeks and previews, character profiles, and interviews among others.

It claims that about 0.4 million people visit the website on a monthly basis and clocked revenues of $621,000 (about Rs 5.2 crore) in the calendar year 2023.

Through this deal, Absolute Sports' US subsidiary Sportskeeda Inc is acquiring all of Soap Central's intellectual property rights including but not limited to domain rights, trademark, content, website, and software codes among others.

The company said it plans to further expand the website's coverage into multiple new entertainment and pop-culture content categories in the future.

The United States is the biggest market for the Sportskeeda parent, accounting for about 69.1 percent of the company's revenues in FY24. Absolute Sports' revenue from the region was at Rs 135.4 crore for FY24, as compared to the overall revenues of Rs 196 crore.

In March, Nazara Technologies had earmarked a $100-million war chest for global expansion over the next 24 months.