Nazara Subsidiary Absolute Sports To Acquire Assets Of Soap Central For $1.4 Mn

Nazara Technologies’ subsidiary Absolute Sports is acquiring all the assets of Pennsylvania-based entertainment news site Soap Central for $1.4 Mn (around INR 11.6 Cr) in an all-cash deal.

With this buyout, Absolute Sports, the parent entity of Sportskeeda and Pro Football Network, aims to become one of the leading sports and entertainment focus publishers in the US market.

Absolute Sports, which already operates SK Pop (Pop-Culture), plans to use its experience in scaling entertainment content to establish Soap Central as a prominent entertainment destination for its US fans, the company said in a statement.

The transaction is expected to be closed in the next 30 days.

Established in 2009, Absolute Sports, through its flagship brand Sportskeeda.com, is a global sports media platform covering sports and esports topics, claiming to reach over 100 Mn fans monthly. 

In 2019, Nazara, a publicly listed gaming and sports media platform, acquired a majority stake in Absolute Sports.

“The entertainment publishing industry is more than twice the size of sports publishing (Similarweb, 2024) and allows us a great canvas for expansion into multiple content categories. Having tested our content publishing and hyper-growth playbook with the acquisition of Pro Football Network last year, we are confident of scaling Soap Central in a very short time,” said Ajay Pratap Singh, chief executive of Absolute Sports.

Founded in March 1995 by Dan J. Kroll, Soap Central offers news, comprehensive daily recaps, sneak peeks and previews, character profiles, interviews and more for US TV Shows. 

In the calendar year 2023, Soap Central generated revenues of $621K (around INR 5.2 Cr). 

The development comes days after shares of gaming major Nazara Technologies jumped as much as 15.3% to touch INR 809.8 during the intraday trading on the BSE on Monday (June 3).

Besides, the company’s consolidated net profit declined 98% to INR 18 Lakh in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) from INR 9.4 Cr in the year-ago quarter. Sequentially, the company’s profit also saw a significant decline from INR 29.5 Cr in Q3 FY24. 

Nazara attributed this to charges of INR 11.37 Cr due to goodwill impairments and INR 10.56 Cr for intangible assets related to the gaming segment during Q4.