(21 August 2007 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Soon after purchasing cricket website Cricinfo.com in June, Walt Disney Co.'s sports network ESPN has bought rugby news website Scrum.com in a bid to revv up its online coverage of the World Cup. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition marks the latest strategic move by ESPN as part of its agenda to move beyond American sports to build global audience by buying niche websites.

ESPN has also launched French, German, Spanish and Italian versions of ESPNsoccernet.com apart from bagging the rights to show previous World Cup Rugby matches on ESPN Classic.

In an official statement, ESPN MD for Europe, Middle East and Africa Lynne Frank said, "We now offer sports fans world class online coverage of the top three sports in many of our markets. We are particularly delighted that scrum.com joins ESPN prior to this year's Rugby World Cup that kicks off on 7 September."

ESPN's Soccernet.com, and now Scrum.com director Robin Ashton said, "Like Cricinfo, Scrum.com is very strong in its commentary, ESPN will look to enhance that with multi-media products - we're a World Cup and Heineken Cup broadcaster, and we'll bring more video onto the site."

Scrum.com was originally established by Emap and then sold to worldwide sports network, Sportal in 1999. When Sportal collapsed in 2001, Scrum was set for closure, but continued to function thanks to a consortium of rugby lovers who have kept the site running for the last six years. According to estimates, it attracts about 5,00,000 readers each month at the height of the rugby season.