Iconic Labs (LON:ICON ) said it has entered into a strategic partnership with the UK & Ireland sports broadcaster, Premier Sports, to provide digital content rights across multiple sports.
The media and technology group described it as ‘a landmark agreement’ between where both will share rights and formats across both entities' audiences with Premier Sports making an equity investment into the group’s JOE and HER media group brands.
JOE and HER media are high profile digital publishers in the UK & Ireland with inclusive male and female brands that achieve over 100m views a week. Iconic manages and controls JOE and HER pursuant to its management services agreement with Greencastle Capital.
Premier Sports has a successful pay TV channel with over 600,000 subscribers together with free-to-air channels that broadcast into over 18 million homes across the UK & Ireland.
This partnership will see JOE and HER become the exclusive UK and Irish digital home of the sports media rights in Premier Sports portfolio, which includes Tier 1 football and rugby properties such as Italy Serie A football league and the Pro 14 rugby union competition.
The company outlined that this strategic partnership will also provide for operational efficiencies through sharing assets including studio space and other production resources.
Iconic will co-produce sports shows for use by JOE and HER with Premier Sport in an approach whereby the shows will be simulcast to both digital and broadcast audiences.
This new partnership with Premier Sports follows on from Greencastle Capital's acquisition of the Lovin Media Group last month and has the effect that on a combined basis Iconic Labs now manages and controls Ireland's largest independent digital media business.
"We are excited to announce this strategic partnership with Premier Sports. It is a big step for us in achieving our vision for Iconic and the JOE and HER media group in bridging the gap between digital publisher and broadcaster,” said John Quinlan, CEO of Iconic Labs.
He said, “In addition to immediate revenue opportunities for Iconic, the access this partnership provides to sports rights and new TV audiences gives us a unique position and offering in the market and is a strong verification of the great work our teams have done to date."
Commenting on the two media brands, Mickey RoO'Rourke of Premier Sports commented, "They have a vast digital footprint across the UK & Ireland with inclusive male and female audiences and an extensive knowledge of how these audiences consume content online.”
Shares in Iconic Labs have traded within a tight range of 0.01p and 0.02p over the past month to open 16.67% higher this morning at 0.014p following the announcement.
Reasons to Follow Iconic Labs
Iconic Labs is a multi-divisional new media and technology firm positioned to deliver consultancy, products, marketing and distribution with a focus is to expand its content platform, suite of digital brands, and technology products organically and through acquisitions.
The company completed its acquisition by Greencastle Capital of Maximum Media Limited ("JOE Media Ireland") last month where it took over the operational and strategic management of JOE Media Ireland. Since July 2020, Iconic has managed JOE in the UK.
Iconic had been working with Greencastle on a capital bid to buy the Joe media brand in both Ireland and the UK back in June 2020. The follow-on acquisition has allowed JOE, which generates in excess of £10m of revenue per year, to be taken out of administration.
The combined JOE Media businesses generated in excess of £10m of revenue in FY 2019. The UK business grew annual revenue at a rate of 117.7% between 2016 and 2019.
The group previously outlined that it expects a one-company structure approach covering JOE media in Ireland and the UK to enable a return to profitability in 2021, or even before.
Greencastle agreed that in order to better reflect both the costs of managing the JOE Media group, and the success thus far in managing JOE Media UK, the monthly management fee payable to Icon will be increased from £50,000 to £100,000 with immediate effect.
Recently, Iconic told investors that it had raised £747,793 by way of placing at 0.012p per share and entered into a new debt facility with Shard Merchant Capital Limited ("SMC").
The facility with SMC is a conventional senior secured loan that has been entered into in order to ensure that the Company has sufficient working capital for its next phase of growth.
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