Planet Sport has outlined plans to expand the Leeds-based operation into North America, Australia and Africa as well as moving into 24/7 sports coverage.
The sports media group is also looking to invest in sports data and interactive sports gaming.
“Getting 24 hour rolling coverage going is a focus for us this year, so when you roll out of bed in the morning and reach for your phone, there will be fresh stories on our sites, no matter where you are in the world,” said Tim Satchell, Managing Director – Publishing, Planet Sport.
“We now have 40 full-time journalists and a network of another 50 or so freelancers, with plans in place to hire another 15 permanent journalists this year in the US, Australia, South Africa and here in the UK.”
The investment in journalism will help it cover more USA and southern hemisphere football and rugby and to expand into Moto GP, greyhounds, and MMA.
“One of our big areas of investment is going to be sports data,” continued Satchell.
“We have traditionally produced plenty of written editorial, but we are now expanding our live coverage, building stats widgets to pull into articles and writing more detailed stats analysis.
“That means Planet Sport is currently hiring sports data journalists, who can cover events in granular detail by focusing in and pulling apart the most telling sports stats.”
The company has recently introduced a cross-network registration platform for its sites, to enable users to personalise their experience depending on what sport or individual teams they follow.
“Publishing is traditionally about journalism, and the model is to finance it through advertising,” added Nik Keene, Chief Product Officer at Planet Sport.
“However, Planet Sport sits between that and being a tech and B2B services company. We now have a team of 30 developers, who as well as supporting the publishing side, also creates a wealth of innovative technology products for clients in media, publishing, broadcast, mobile and gaming.
“From experience and in testing new technologies, we have seen that there are various tools and products that publishers can utilise from third parties, but they often have their limitations and drawbacks in performance or cost for example.
“We have taken most of these types of products in-house, to offer our own audiences a better experience and supported businesses looking to offer content and engagement products of their own, but without those drawbacks. We think we have some innovative tech up our sleeves that no one else has.”
Planet Sport titles reach an audience of around 20 million people every month, with brands including Football365.com, PlanetF1.com, PlanetRugby.com, PlanetFootball.com, TEAMtalk.com, LoveRugbyLeague.com and PlanetSport.com.
