Minute Media

Market position

Wikipedia describes Minute Media as a major new media holding company in sports news and commentary, with over 600 employees and projected annual revenue upwards of $100 million. The company claims the #1 sports property in Comscore across desktop and mobile, a global monthly footprint of over 200 million, and more than 500 publishing and advertising partners.

The company pairs owned-and-operated content brands with the proprietary technology stack that powers them, then licenses that same publishing, video and advertising technology to external publishers — combining direct-sold demand from its own audiences with programmatic supply-side infrastructure for partners.

Technology

The company built a proprietary digital publishing platform that powers both its own content destinations and third-party publisher sites. Products include the STN Video online video platform, offering end-to-end OVP technology and brand-safe video from over 250 providers distributed across more than 2,000 publisher sites; Minute Media's supply-side platform for programmatic connections between publishers and brands; and ad management solutions. It launched the Voltax Video technology brand in May 2020 and an in-house advertising platform in 2022.

Go-to-market

Minute Media reaches audiences directly through its owned-and-operated brands and reaches publishers and advertisers through platform licensing, publisher partnerships and direct brand sales. It reports more than 500 publishing and advertising partners and offers dedicated solutions tracks for advertisers, publishers and podcast creators. Growth has also come through acquisitions of content brands and technology companies, and through a licensing arrangement for the Sports Illustrated publishing rights.

Digital publishers seeking publishing, video and monetization technology; advertisers and brands seeking scaled distribution and audiences; podcast creators; and sports, gaming and entertainment consumers who read its owned brands.

Geography

Headquartered in the United States with a research and development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, where about 100 employees work primarily on technology and product. Offices are listed in New York (625 Broadway), Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Tel Aviv (8 Yitzhak Sadeh St., Acro Tower), London (Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street), Singapore, Tokyo and São Paulo, spanning four continents.

History

The company was first established in 2011 in Israel under the name 90min, a digital publication dedicated to soccer, and subsequently grew into a holding company for multiple sports news and commentary properties. It acquired Mental Floss from the estate of Felix Dennis in September 2018, The Big Lead from Gannett in March 2019, The Players' Tribune in November 2019 and the FanSided network of more than 300 sports blogs in January 2020. It raised $40 million led by Dawn Capital in February 2020, bringing total funding to $160 million. In 2021 it made its first technology acquisition, buying Tel Aviv-based publishing technology company Wazimo. In January 2024 it acquired STN Video, and in March 2024 it licensed the publishing rights to Sports Illustrated from Authentic Brands Group for 10 years, replacing The Arena Group. The company's site also announces an acquisition of VideoVerse.

Risks & controversies

Founder Asaf Peled has described an early split among the three co-founders as a significant crisis in the company's first years, after which he continued leading the business alone. The Wikipedia entry flags portions of its acquisition history, including the sourcing for The Big Lead purchase, as relying on references questioned for reliability.