Heavy Partners With Action Sports Network Alli
- by Gavin O'Malley @mp_gavin, April 6, 2009
As a result of this partnership, Heavy's worldwide audiences in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia will be getting two new video channels of Alli content.
While expansion is the name of the game, the wide world of action sports is not exactly new to Heavy according to its co-founder and co-CEO Heavy Simon Assaad, co-founder and co-CEO of Heavy. "Heavy has always been a champion of action sports," said Assaad.
One channel will feature exclusive online videos from the Alliance including Dew Tour and other select Alli properties, with the other showcasing public videos from each member of the Alliance, which includes: the Dew Tour; Winter Dew Tour; China Invitational; Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship, King of Wake series and the Gatorade Free Flow Tour. Both channels will launch in June, 2009.
Owned by NBC Sports and MTV Networks, Alli encompasses national and international action sports tours and events and multimedia production, as well as a consumer facing lifestyle brand.
All Alli videos will employ Heavy's video ad units throughout -- known as "Video Skins" -- monetizing the video by wrapping it with a premium, high-CPM ad unit specifically designed for brand advertisers.
Amid layoffs late last year, questions arose regarding the health of Heavy.com. Last October, Heavy cut 14% of staff, or 12 people -- which followed an earlier round of layoffs in June in which Heavy reduced its workforce from 105 to 80.
Assaad has since addressed the layoffs, telling Online Media Daily: "Our layoffs were just done earlier than everyone else's, and our team is now feeling comfortable about the future."
Launched last March, the Heavy Men's Network features Heavy.com and other properties, including action sports community BNQT.com, Flash gaming portal Newgrounds, Inc., Quincy Jones's QD3 and Vidshadow, Inc.
