• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 21, 2008

Gaining the rights to post "premium" content from the National Basketball Association, the Professional Golfers' Association, and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (all managed by Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting) on Yahoo Sports wasn't easy. Now that it's a done deal, Yahoo Publishing Channel senior vice president, Todd Teresi, says life is good. Yahoo's agreement with Turner, which was announced in July, gives Yahoo access to exclusive interviews with athletes and live streams from games and events, rather than just sports scores and basic news.

In turn, the deal makes Turner the gatekeeper of display, sponsorship and video advertising on any Yahoo page with content from PGA.com, PGATOUR.com, NASCAR.com or NBA.com. Yahoo has typically provided third-party companies support from its technology and online advertising sales team, comprised of thousands of experts worldwide, rather than the other way around.

Yahoo gets an average 20.6 million monthly unique visitors, according to comScore. Aside from the Web traffic, the agreement gives Turner access to Yahoo's ad platform, which targets consumers based on search words and clicks, giving digital buyers access to behavioral characteristics. eMarketer expects Internet search advertising to reach $10.4 billion by the end of 2008, up 23 percent from a year ago. Declining to put a price tag on the agreement, Jimmy Pitaro, general manager of Yahoo Sports and Entertainment, referred to the deal as "an industry standard revenue-share agreement."