- CraveOnline acquires HoopsVibe

- Fantasy Sports Ventures acquires Hoopshype.com

- ESPN acquires HoopGurlz.

All right, what the f is up with that, you might be asking?  A few things.

While the adage says that you should buy low, sell high, I think a lot of these buyers are buying in at a high, so to speak (no, not that kind of high).  My point is that the word is out that basketball is giving soccer a run at becoming the world’s biggest global sport.  I’m not the first or only one to argue this: American magazine had a good piece on this recently.

I’m not high: soccer - or rather football - remains king.  But soccer is not a growth sport; it ain’t growing in the USA, practically the only market where it’s not a top sport.

But basketball?  Basketball is a growth sport… it’s grown a lot, but buyers are betting that it will continue to grow, and they are not wrong.  So I think what you are seeing is buying high, to go higher.

So why is the global angle so important?

Well, in one decade, the American empire has crumbled… and online in particular, the growth will come from abroad.  This does not mean that there aren’t pockets of growth in US new media: video remains high growth, for sure.  But for these buyers, they’re not just buying basketball sites, they’re buying global growth.