Deal Radar 2008: Takkle Tackling Socially

Takkle is a social network for high school sports, where students, athletes, coaches, and fans share their passion. Takkle has a strategic alliance with Sports Illustrated.

Takkle allows students to create their profiles and upload their stats, photos and videos for college recruiters.

In November 2007 Takkle raised $7 million in venture funding led by Sports Illustrated and the New York City Investment Fund along with WMG Investments, Greycroft Partners, IJ Smith Enterprises, and Allen & Co. managing director Jack Schneider. It had earlier raised $5 million in November 2006.

According to Quantcast, Takkle has a traffic rank of 4,432 and attracts close to 0.6 million U.S. monthly unique visitors and 5.7 Million monthly page views. An average user spends approximately 4-5 minutes on the site and views 6.9 pages.

The site earns revenues from advertisements and affiliate programs. Nike is a major advertiser on the site. CPM rates are not published, but let’s say it is between $5 – $10, given current industry dynamics. The investment thesis, of course, is that traffic numbers would rise significantly higher this year, and so would the CPMs.

Takkle would be a good acquisition target for various old and new media companies if they deliver on that thesis.

Newspaper companies like Gannett, McClatchy, NYT may be keen on acquiring Takkle as it would allow them to attract younger visitors and be relevant and meaningful to the new generation.

Time Warner already has a stake in Takkle through the investment made by Sports Illustrated. I am sure Time Warner / AOL would consider buying it out at some point in the future. Takkle is also a good acquisition target for Viacom and Walt Disney because they also target the same youth audience.

All this, if an only if Takkle experiences astronomical traffic and CPM ramp this year.

This segment is a part in the series : Deal Radar 2008