• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, October 7, 2013

CineSport will provide its sports video technology platform, called VaMP, for USA Today’s Sports Media Group, the companies are announcing today.

As part of the partnership deal, CineSport and USA Today will co-produce programming for distribution on the platform, with the ability to shoot it off to hundreds of sites.

The deal is probably deceptively bigger than it might appear at first. Not only does it include the well-known USA Today title, it encompasses more than 100 more localized sites connected to news operations that USA Today’s owner, Gannett Co.,  operates.  

The Sports Group also includes a photography site, USA Today Sports Images, a high school sports site, USA Today High School Sports, Sports on Earth, a site that features distinctive sports writing, operated in conjunction with MLB Advanced Media, and even a mixed martial arts site, MMAjunkie.com.

"USA Today Sports Media Group is the largest and most creatively ambitious network of sports properties, and we're looking forward to developing original programming with their talented editorial teams,” Gregg Winik, CineSport’s CEO, said in a statement. Tom Beusse, president of USAT's sports unit called it "the ideal partnership."

The VaMP platform was developed last year and is used by the Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and more than 100 other daily papers. VaMP allows sites to publish video within the body of articles to augment the story, and to maximize engagement.