ESPN buys cricinfo

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LONDON, Jun 12 (Reuters): Walt Disney Co's sports network ESPN is buying cricinfo, the world's largest specialist cricket Web site, as it expands beyond its traditional strengths of American football, basketball, baseball and Nascar.
The purchase from UK-based Wisden Group, best known for its Cricketers' Almanac, a sporting statistics bible which has been published every year since 1864, marks an important strategic move internationally by ESPN.
"We don't think of ourselves as an American sports television company. We think of ourselves as a large sports and media entertainment company that operates around the world," Russell Wolff, ESPN International executive vice president and managing director told Reuters.
"Cricket is growing in popularity inside the United States among a growing south Asian expatriate population".
The Bangalore-based (www.cricinfo.com) Web site was founded in 1993 and has more than 7 million monthly users.
Cricket for Walt Disney has traditionally meant a tiny green character with a top hat called Jiminy, the moral conscience of Pinochio in the 1940 cartoon of the same name.