ESPN enters deal with three top college fan Web sites

ESPN has entered a cross-promotional and content integration agreement with three of the top college-affiliated fan Web sites in the United States – University of Florida’s GatorCountry.com, University of Oklahoma’s OUInsider.com and University of Southern California’s WeAreSC.com.

These sites will continue to produce daily updates featuring the latest football and basketball news related to their respective teams and will incorporate ESPN.com player ratings and other analysis within their sites.

Similar to ESPN.com’s recently announced affiliation with Ohio State fan site Bucknuts.com, users who currently subscribe to premium services on these sites will instantly become members of ESPN.com’s premium subscription service, ESPN Insider, which features in-depth analysis, statistical breakdowns, and professional-level information. These users will also receive a subscription to the award-winning ESPN The Magazine.

“College sports fans are passionate,” said David Geaslen, director, Scouts ESPN. “The agreements with these three sites will enrich our already robust college sports content at ESPN.com and allow us the opportunity to draw from writers who are experts on each of these schools and their athletic programs.”

The affiliation will mean that GatorCountry.com, OUInsider.com and WeAreSC.com will provide content for their respective team pages at ESPN.com. In return, these fan sites will be able to syndicate content and video presented on ESPN.com that relates to their schools. The staff at each site will continue to own and operate their sites independently. Links to fan site content will also be featured contextually within ESPN.com content.