News Corp Australia acquires fantasy sports franchise
News Corp Australia has bought one of the country’s leading fantasy sports franchises, Supercoach.
Announced on Monday morning, the media giant acquired the platform from Melbourne-based company Vapormedia. It currently runs games across AFL, NRL, BBL, and NBL.
Supercoach has 430,000 registered players who spent an average of 173 minutes on the platform in May, according to Ipsos Iris data. News Corp hopes this audience, combined with the 700 million page views it claims to have annually, will position it as a “powerhouse” in fantasy sports innovation.
It has already opened up opportunities for franchise games across NBA, NFL, and Formula 1.
Mark Reinke, News Corp Australia’s publisher and MD, said it was a “logical next step”. He said the platform’s “untapped potential” will come to the fore, and the media giant will be able to engage new, hard-to-reach audiences, particularly the male under-40 age group.
According to The Growth Distillery’s Sporting Nation report last year, the fantasy sports sector has experienced strong and sustained growth among this age group. It has risen from 8% in 2021, to 18% in 2024.
“There’s room to grow that demographic by offering new season-long formats and exploring new codes, and we believe plenty of other opportunities can also be tapped,” Reinke said in a release on Monday.
“We have a large 18-25, predominantly male audience but we see a lot of interest from other, particularly female audiences interested in shorter form games and other franchises that we now have the flexibility and resources to investigate fully.”
The acquisition opens new commercial opportunities for News Corp Australia.
“Make no mistake, the SuperCoach franchise is a series of large, growing, and uniquely engaged and passionate communities, but we have just scratched the surface,” Reinke said.
“It really is more than a game and bringing the expertise in-house will enable deeper collaboration with the thriving ecosystem of SuperCoach content creators across social media, podcast and video platforms.”
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