Yahoo To Acquire Sports-Centric Mobile Developer Hitpost
Yahoo is set to acquire Hitpost, the maker of a handful of sports-centric mobile apps, to beef up its own sports offerings on iOS and Android, say sources familiar with the deal. The company's team of seven or so is heading over to join Yahoo.
Context & Ripple Effects
This deal extends a pattern rather than starting one: Yahoo bought sports-data firm Citizen Sports back in March 2010 to seed its sports properties, and under Marissa Mayer the company has kept buying small mobile teams for talent, most recently gaming startup Loki Studios in May 2013. Hitpost, a roughly seven-person shop making sports apps for iOS and Android, fits both templates at once — mobile and sports.
The pickup is reported by sources rather than confirmed by either company, and the syndication footprint beyond TechCrunch is minimal, so the significance here is less the asset itself than what it says about how Yahoo is staffing its consumer apps.
First-order effects
- Hitpost's team of about seven joins Yahoo, adding mobile engineering capacity specifically aimed at the company's sports apps on iOS and Android.
- Yahoo gains whatever sports-app product work Hitpost had underway, folding a small independent developer into an internal media-and-mobile organization.
Second-order effects
- Rivals building sports content and second-screen apps on iOS and Android now compete against Yahoo's deepening bench of acquired mobile-sports teams rather than just its existing products.
- For tiny sports-app studios, the deal is another data point that Yahoo is a willing buyer of small mobile teams, shaping founders' expectations about exits versus staying independent.
Third-order effects
- If the Mayer-era rhythm holds — Citizen Sports in 2010, Loki Studios in May 2013, Hitpost now — Yahoo's consumer apps are being assembled through repeated small acquisitions, with sports emerging as a recurring target area.
- The steady accumulation of acqui-hires points toward consolidation of niche mobile development talent inside large portals, thinning the independent field in categories like sports where incumbents already own distribution advantages.
The trend: Yahoo is rebuilding its mobile and sports products through a cadence of small talent acquisitions, with Hitpost the latest data point in a buying streak that began with Citizen Sports three years earlier.