• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 2, 2007

Time Inc. Thursday said its Sports Illustrated Group has signed an agreement to buy sports enthusiast Web site FanNation.com. Additionally, Time plans to acquire a minority stake in FanNation's parent company, Sports Technologies Inc., which Time will use to boost the Web efforts of its various units. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.

FanNation.com is a destination site for fans, fantasy game players, and bloggers, which aggregates, filters and customizes sports information while allowing users to contribute their own content.

"This acquisition will enable the SI Group to compete in the Web 2.0 space," Mark Ford, president and publisher of the SI Group, said in a statement.

STI technologies will be deployed first by the SI Group, but soon thereafter across other major Time Inc. online properties, according to Time Inc. executive vice president John Squires.

"Time Inc.'s investment in STI is perfectly aligned with our digital strategy--to enable consumers to access our content across all digital platforms and engage with our brands through personalized and customized online experiences," Squires said in a statement. "STI will be invaluable to Time Inc. as we move beyond conventional publishing online into social forms of media, an area of major emphasis for us this year."

FanNation.com will be run by the Sports Illustrated Group under Ford, who will report to Jeff Price, president of SI Digital.

The digital efforts are the latest from a company struggling with transition online amid major cutbacks. On Sunday, SI.com relaunched with a video-heavy design and a widened layout intended to get more information in front of consumers with varying interests.

According to Sports Illustrated, SI.com contributed between 15% and 20% of the franchise's total revenue in 2006--a percentage that is expected to grow this year, according to Paul Fichtenbaum, SI.com's managing editor.

SI.com lags behind top sports sites like ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports, AOL Sports, and CBS SportsLine. Last September, SI.com drew 5.8 million users, while ESPN.com and Yahoo Sports pulled in audiences of 20 million and 17 million, respectively, according to comScore. Fichtenbaum contests comScore's findings, claiming that SI.com's traffic is at least three times greater than comScore's numbers.