In a move that is seen as the new Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang''s first big beal, AP reports that Yahoo! has purchased Rivals a portal that has the latest on collegiate sports.

"The Rivals.com deal will intensify Yahoo's competition with News Corp.'s online division, which already owns a similar site called Scout.com. Although Yahoo began negotiating with Rivals.com while Semel was still in command, the acquisition papers weren't signed until Yang's second day as CEO, said Scott Moore, a Yahoo senior vice president who oversees its news division. «Jerry is very excited about it,» Moore said. Both Rivals.com and Scout.com cater to obsessive sports fans who want to know every detail about their favorite college sports teams. The users of these sites typically are alumni of the colleges, major financial contributors to the athletic programs, or both."

Rivals has 185,000 subscribers while Yahoo's sports category attracted 15.1 million visitors in May this year, only to rank second after ESPN's 17.6 million, informs Media Metrix. Tech Crunch informs that according to the grapevine that the sum of the purchase was $100 million.

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