Live current media
Call.com Rings Up $1.1 Million
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by Leena Rao on August 31, 2009

We just wrote about the dominance of number of .com domains and we’ve also reported that .com domain registrations were starting to turn around again after a poor 2008. Today, another .com domain passed the million dollar mark, with Call.com selling for $1.1 million via domain brokerage Sedo to an undisclosed buyer.

The domain was sold by Live Current Media, which had sold, then reacquired the domain over the past years. Live Current apparently sold the domain as part of a package of domains including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, and Exercise.com. Part of the deal was that Live Current would get royalties from any revenue earned from the domains. The company ended up buying back Call.com in 2006, and nullified the royalty stipulation. According to Domain Name Wire, the value of the royalty stream was $250,000 in future revenue, which makes the $1.1 million sale a good bet. Live Current also recently sold Cricket.com for a cool $1.75 million. Last year, Live Current experienced some financial difficulties and was looking to raise cash to survive by liquidating its domain names.

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Live Current Media In Trouble, Raising Cash
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by Robin Wauters on November 20, 2008

Live Current Media, a Canadian company which is in the business of developing, operating and monetizing premium domain names, has raised a little over $1 million through a private placement. The money comes from Live Current’s own management team and a couple of outside investors, and is expected to be the first part of a private funding which could total up to $2 million in the next 15 days.

Live Current, which changed its name from Communicate.com earlier this year, is a publicly traded company (OTCbb:LIVC). The investors paid 65 cents per unit, a premium of 38% to yesterday’s closing price of 40 cents.

The financial performance isn’t looking that great, however (more after the jump).

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Live Current Media Signs a $50 Million Deal For Exclusive Online Rights To Indian Cricket
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by Erick Schonfeld on April 17, 2008

cricket-image-2.png

Here’s a deal straight out of Rupert Murdoch’s playbook circa 1994. Just like Murdoch established Fox back then by paying an exorbitant-seeming sum ($1.6 billion at the time) for the rights to broadcast the NFL, Live Current Media is paying $50 million over ten years for the exclusive online rights to official content from the Indian Premier League (a new cricket league in India with a shorter, more fan-friendly version of the game—first match is tomorrow). Cricket is huge in India and elsewhere. It is a sport perfect for online distribution, with fans spread all over the world. Globally there are about one billion fans, estimates Live Current Media. And the Indian Premier League has already on track to generate $2 billion overall this year.

As part of the deal, Current Live will create and operate official sites for the Indian Premier League (IPLT20.com) and the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI.tv). Current Live will pay the Indian Premier League $3 million a year, and the BCCI $2 million a year for the exclusive online rights to official photos, video footage, live scoreboards, match results stats, a fantasy cricket league, ticketing, fan polling, contests, and more. It is a pretty big commitment for Live Current Media, a domain-name company with revenues of $9 million last year and a net loss of $2 million. The Canadian company is basically betting its entire $51 million over-the-counter market cap on this deal.

cricket-image.pngBut Live Current also owns cricket.com, which will be seeded with content from this deal. Kulveer Taggar, the former CEO of Auctomatic (which was recently purchased by Current Live Media) and one of the internal champions of the deal tells me:

The Cricket.com vision is to create a site for cricket fans regardless of the country or specific league. Passionate cricket fans may be interested in watching a different league or may just want to stay up on all the cricket news they can get access to and that is what Cricket.com will deliver. Following this significant relationship with the IPL and BCCI, Live Current will be speaking with other cricket organizations and determining relationships for content, media access and distribution as appropriate.

There is no question that global multinationals are looking for ways to target the high-growth Indian market and that cricket is one of the few channels through which the majority of Indians are engaged with. It’s not surprising to see sponsors of the league such as Pepsi, Honda, and Citibank. It is not a local Indian phenomenon. There are major business players globally tapping into this market.

He expects to launch Cricket.com by the end of the summer or early fall. So really, this deal is all about gaining exclusive content for Cricket.com. But did Current Live Media pay too much for the rights? Taggar argues not:

Recently the Cricinfo.com site was sold to ESPN for over $50 million and while the site had good traffic, it did not have exclusive content rights negotiated for that price.

In other words, he wants to take on ESPN.com. Will this be the start of bidding wars for the exclusive online rights for other sports leagues, or does this only make sense for cricket? Whle you ponder that and wait for Cricket.com to launch, cricket fans can check out Cricketwires, a recently-launched Digg-like site for all things cricket.

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