US PRESSWIRE Rebrands To Become USA TODAY Sports Images

Nation's largest dedicated sports image service strengthens its connection with USA TODAY Sports Media Group, further expands technology infrastructure for image syndication

News provided by

USA TODAY Sports Media Group

Dec 03, 2012, 10:30 ET

MCLEAN, Va., Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The USA TODAY Sports Media Group today announced the re-branding of US PRESSWIRE, its dedicated sports image service providing coverage for nearly 10,000 events each year, to USA TODAY Sports Images. This is part of the larger content syndication strategy for USA TODAY Sports which includes expanding the distribution of all of its content across multiple platforms.

Acquired by the USA TODAY Sports Media Group in 2011, USA TODAY Sports Images serves as the primary sports image provider for all Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) media properties, including USA TODAY Sports, both domestically and around the world. It also syndicates images to clients which include several of the largest non-Gannett media brands in the country, along with hundreds of additional sites. Among those sites are most of the top 15 sports sites which represent a combined audience of more than 160 million sports fans each month as measured by comScore.

"Our ability to create and syndicate iconic sports images from across all sports and levels -- from the Super Bowl to local high school games -- has been a major pillar of our business from day one," said Tom Beusse, President of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group. "Re-branding US PRESSWIRE to USA TODAY Sports Images further strengthens its relationship to our overall business objectives and better defines the service it provides -- not only throughout Gannett and USA TODAY Sports, but throughout the sports content universe as a whole."

In conjunction with the re-branding, USA TODAY Sports Images, will roll out a new database and website with state-of-the-art functionality and expanded content management capabilities which will be fully operational at its new website, USATODAYSportsImages.com, by January 1, 2013. The technological expansion is designed to meet the rapidly growing demand for USA TODAY Sports Images' premium content and to support its massive production output which now reaches nearly 500,000 fully edited images per year.

"With the re-branding, database and infrastructure investments, USA TODAY Sports Images is fully integrated and extremely well positioned to continue to serve the growing demands of clients within the sports media space -- both internally and externally," said Bruce Odle, President, USA TODAY Sports Images for the USA TODAY Sports Media Group.

The USA TODAY Sports Media Group encompasses all sports initiatives across USA TODAY Sports and Gannett's more than 100 well-known local media brands. It also includes the sports photography wire service, USA TODAY Sports Images, USA TODAY High School Sports and the hundreds of sites within USA TODAY Sports Digital Properties such as thebiglead.com and mixed martial arts site MMAjunkie.com, among others. USA TODAY is owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI).

(Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121203/DC21187LOGO )

SOURCE USA TODAY Sports Media Group