Sometimes, there is truth to a rumor. Yahoo! announced today that it did in fact go shopping and purchased Citizen Sports to further solidify its fantasy sports empire. Citizen Sports Inc is leading developer of fantasy sports games that are built into social networks, such as Facebook. While Yahoo! is clearly the leader in fantasy sports right now, this acquisition of Citizen Sports positions itself way to dominate the emerging social network fantasy sports leagues.

Oddly enough, Citizen Sports Inc started as ProTrade featuring a stock market like fantasy sports game. However, as it saw the emerging potential for social fantasy sports games (and non-fantasy sports games), it quickly adjusted its strategy to making much more traditional fantasy games for the social networks. That shift in strategy appears to have paid off very nicely.

While the official amount of the deal has not been announced, it is rumored that Citizen Sports was purchased for somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 to $50 million. According to Crunchbase, Citizen Sports was funded with at least $10M. While the investors will get a good chunk of that money, the founders will walk away with a fair share of money themselves.

Congratulations to everyone at Citizen Sports on the acquisition and to Yahoo! for another well thought out move.

Additional Coverage:

• Yahoo! to Acquire Citizen Sports (Press Release)
• Yahoo Buys Social Sports Startup Citizen Sports (Paid Content)

XML Team announced late last night that it has acquired Fantasy Sports Scores. Based out of Canada, Fantasy Sports Services is a provider of fantasy games and fantasy content

In the press release announcing the purchase of Fantasy Sports Services by XML Team, XML president Alex Karben said “This addition gives us even more quality sports content to offer our expanding client base, and helps us meet the needs of both our existing and potential clients in various media arenas.”

In other words, with this new acquisition, it gives XML Team the ability to be more than just a statistics provider and offer turnkey solutions. This acquistion gives XML Team the ability to get on par with its main competitor Stats, which offers complete turnkey solutions for its customers.

This is a solid move by XML Team. The next steps for its business were probably to sell, to grow by capturing additional market share of its current products, or to grow by expanding its product offerings. Ultimately, this is path that will make XML Team a much more valuable company.

Since this purchases is designed to compliment many of XML Team’s product offerings, Fantasy Sports Services employees are expected to stay on in their current capacities.

Congratulations to Alex and his team on their new purchase, and to Fantasy Sports Services on a successful sale. I wish the two groups luck as they grow to become one company.

Hot off the presses, RotoWire has announced the purchase of Mock Draft Central. We reported earlier that Mock Draft Central was for sale and that Mock Draft Central had received an offer and was negotiating terms. This concludes four months of negotiations by both sides.

The official RotoWire press release did not disclose the terms, but it was definitely more than the $195,000 the original Mock Draft Central online auction would have started. Mock Draft Central’s founder Jason Pliml will stay on with RotoWire for a while to ensure a smooth transition.

These is a great acquistion by RotoWire, as the draft software will perfectly compliment its commissioner product. Even though both sites will be maintained as separate entities, Mock Draft Central’s and RotoWire’s user bases are what you would describe as the heavy fantasy user, which creates a great opportunity to market the two products to both user bases. I would not be shocked if the deal paid for itself just through new subscriptions in the next two to three years.

Congratulations to Peter Schoenke at RotoWire on his new acquistion and to Jason Pliml on the sale of his baby.

In another example of fantasy sports industry consolidation, RealTime Fantasy Sports announced the acquisition of Fantasy City Sports. RealTime Fantasy Sports is one of the leading independent fantasy football sites out there, and the acquisition of Fantasy City Sports will help it grow its customer base.

According to its website, Fantasy City Sports has provided commissioner services to its clients since 1984, which would put them back into the pen and paper days, and one of the original sites. Fantasy City Sports owner Derek Olness said that the deal allows it customers to get “more flexibility in service options, including individual defensive players.” In other words, this purchase was probably more of a purchase of existing accounts, as Fantasy City Sports was either looking to get out of the fantasy industry, or other outside circumstances were causing Fantasy City Sports to need to leave the industry.

With literally hundreds of fantasy companies in existence, consolidation is inevitable. The value in this news is that it is important to remember that fantasy players are extremely loyal, and the once you have built a business with a loyal following, it creates real value in that business.

Congratulations to RT Sports and Fantasy City Sports on their new relationship.

Additional Resources

• RealTime Fantasy Sports Acquires Fantasy City Sports (Press Release)