Conde Nast Owner Advance Hands Sporting News Over to U.K. Video Company

The Sporting News used to be one of America’s oldest print publications, but last year it moved to a digital-only format. And now it’s owned by a British Web video company.

Sporting News owner Advance Publications — the same folks that own Conde Nast — has folded the title into a joint venture with Perform, a London-based digital video distributor. The idea is to create a bigger U.S. presence for Perform, which already distributes sports highlights clips to some U.S. newspapers and other publications.

Perform will own 65 percent of the joint venture, and has the right to buy out Advance’s stake for $65 million. Perform will kick in $1.2 million, and Advance, via its American City Business Journals unit, will chip in $4.2 million.

ComScore says SportingNews.com, which also acts as AOL’s sports hub, generated 6.7 million U.S. uniques in February, a number that has stayed fairly constant for the last year.