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http://www.nma.co.uk/sky-gives-rivalsnet-football-community-the-boot/3002064.article"Sky has closed Rivals.net, its online football community, blaming its poor commercial performance.
The media giant shut the network of fan sites for all 92 football clubs, including Manchester United’s United We Stand, Everton’s When Skies Are Grey and Swindon Town's My Only Swindon, without prior warning to members.
Visitors to any of the sites are met with the message ‘Rivals.net is currently unavailable’.
A Sky spokesman told new media age the decision was due to a lack of revenue from the network, which it bought as part its acquisition of 365 Media Group in 2007.
He said, “Sky is constantly reviewing the performance of its properties and unfortunately Rivals.net wasn’t performing as well as we’d hoped. Therefore, the decision was made to close it.”
The decision doesn’t affect football portal Football365, part of the 365 Group.
The news comes as Daily Mirror has launched a standalone football site to coincide with the new Premiership season in August.
The site will offer breaking news, opinions and thousands of images from Mirror Group’s archive, including unseen shots of football legends such as Bobby Moore and George Best.
Video interviews of football pundits such as Sir Trevor Brooking and World Cup winner George Cohen will be available, as well as online exclusive videos and written content from Mirror columnists like Stan Collymore and Mark Lawrenson.
Mark Hollinshead, MD of Mirror Group Newspapers, said, “Our firm intention is to fully capture the passion of football and its fans. Mirror Football will be a uniquely engaging website and an instant smash hit with a very broad and knowledgeable audience.”
Trinity Mirror, Daily Mirror’s owner, reported a 13% annual drop in group digital revenues for the period ending 26 April 2009."
