Sportal was a company of the
dotcom boom
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
at the end of the 1990s. Founded by
Rob Hersov
Rob or ROB may refer to:
Places
* Rob, Velike Lašče, a settlement in Slovenia
* Roberts International Airport (IATA code ROB), in Monrovia, Liberia
People
* Rob (given name), a given name or nickname, e.g., for Robert(o), Robin/Robyn
* Rob ...
, and backed by
BSkyB
Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...
and
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...
's Fininvest among others, the company, originally called Pangolin, acquired rights to host a many official websites of Europe's leading football clubs (including
Real Madrid
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid.
Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...
,
Juventus
Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...
,
AC Milan
Associazione Calcio Milan (), commonly referred to as AC Milan or simply Milan, is a professional football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons ...
and
Bayern Munich
Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...
) as well as lower-profile sites across a number of other sports. It also opened offices across Europe, in South Africa, and in Australia.
In December 1999 it was valued at
$170 million, and in the summer of 2000 it was named as the ''
Sunday Times's'' #1 web company at the same time it ran the website for
Euro 2000
The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe.
The finals tournament was ...
.
In November, what remained of the company was sold for £190,000 to
365 Media Group (then known as ukbetting plc). 365 initially continued Sportal as sports content site then in 2002 relaunched the brand as a multi-sports broadband video portal sportal.com. {{citation needed, date=March 2016
In 2008, Sportal also opened its office in Mumbai and their Indian-centric website, www.sportal.co.in, was launched in November 2010.
British sport websites