COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, March 25. ACCORDING to an article by Tripp Mickle in the Sports Business Journal, Wasserman Media Group (WMG) has elected to exit its digital rights partnership with USA Swimming, USA Track & Field and USA Gymnastics.
Nearly two years ago, WMG signed what was then a landmark deal in which multiple National Governing Bodies bundled their marketing and digital rights together. Now, WMG has decided to focus its energies back to "action sports" that include motocross and skateboarding.
According to the article, "Last week, USA Swimming and USA Track & Field joined USA Gymnastics in leaving WMG and returning to the marketplace independently. WMG will return USA Swimming's digital rights and the WMG-created Web site Swimnetwork.com to the national governing body (NGB), and it no longer will work with USA Track & Field as a business partner."
"We're a very good sports organization, and we're good at content and we're good at promotion in the swimming community, but building digital platforms is not what we do," Matt Farrell, USA Swimming's chief marketing officer, told the Sports Business Journal.
Full text of the Sports Business Journal article.