The Active Network, which owns sports portal Active.com and also provides Web-based marketing and other services, just raised $80 million closing a round of funding led by Disney's ESPN Networks. It's Active Networks' fifth round since 1999, increasing total investment in the company to $275 million. In 2004, Active filed for a $46 million IPO, but pulled it back due to unfavorable conditions, which of course, have only deteriorated since. Active says it plans to spend the money on infrastructure and more acquisitions. In the past two years, the company's acquired 11 others in total. Nobody will say if the company's profitable — which probably means its not — but PaidContent heard Active pulled $107 million in revenue in 2007.

• Arianna Huffington says her website is not for sale, but that's probably just because no one is interested in paying $200 million for it. [Gawker]

Microsoft joined backend video services provider Move Network's third funding round with an undisclosed investment today. Prior investors, including Benchmark Capital, Cisco and Disney, have already invested $67.3 million in the company. Novell cofounder Drew Major launched Move as a service to help users transfer large email files. The company switched its focus to video in 2004. In a 2007 article, Forbes writer Quentin Hardy handily explained how Move Networks' technology is different than YouTube:

There's no disputing the fact that NBC has made a fucking mint broadcasting these Olympics. They even used their clout to ensure Michael Phelps could be shown live in US prime time, and reaped millions while speeding up the Phelps backlash. But they have pissed off some serious sports fans by often relying on replays over live events, and announcing marginal Beijing events from Midtown NYC. So now ESPN is considering sneaking in and jacking the future Olympic broadcast rights, to bring you archery and steeplechase freaks every second, live! ESPN is considering a bid with ABC for the 2014 and 2016 games, and promises to "carry more of them live, regardless of the time zone, than NBC traditionally has done." They liken it to their World Cup coverage, where morning broadcasts of games results in bleary-eyed drunk fans stumbling out of Irish bars at 7:30 a.m. Um, yay. So why didn't ESPN and ABC get the games this time around?

• Addiction sells: now in its fifth season, Intervention is A&E's highest rated show. [NYT]

In the most recent issue of ESPN: The Magazine, 15-year sports journalism veteran Stephen A. Smith responds to the torrent of hate mail he received following his inaugural column for the magazine. The basic thrust of the criticisms is that Smith is an angry black man who doesn't understand any sport besides basketball. Smith defends the work he put in to earn his byline: "See, contrary to popular belief, ESPN didn't hand me the privilege of working here overnight. That opportunity arrived after years of blood, sweat and tears. A lot of people choose to ignore this. Fine! Especially now that I've got the last word. Or the last word of the first round, anyway." His column is immediately followed in the magazine by a story on the Buffalo Bills authored by a young up-and-comer named Luke Russert. Sigh.

While most of the punditocracy is demanding that Sid Ganis engrave Heath Ledger's name on the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor before the month of July comes to a close, the notoriously contrarian ESPN talking head Skip Bayless isn't quite convinced. During today's episode of their afternoon gabfest 1st And 10, Bayless got into a heated argument with the equally opinionated (read: full of shit) mouthpiece Stephen A. Smith about whether or not The Dark Knight was better than Tim Burton's Batman. As these conversations generally go, the topic of conversation quickly switched to Heath Ledger's universally lauded performance as The Joker. That is to say, universally lauded by everyone but Skip Bayless.

Sports reporters are making bank. Some of them, at least. While foolish idealistic journalists shell out cash to go to J-school and get petty jobs reporting on corporations or wars or political campaigns, a handful of lucky guys sit around spouting completely unverifiable opinions on ballgames and burning $100 bills to fuel their tailgating barbecues. A few of these people-who do nothing that an average American male does not do every weekend, for free (yap about sports)-are making millions. Millions, we say! The Big Lead has a list of the (estimated) top earners in sports journalism, which we have assembled into a handy chart, after the jump. Contemplate the fact that the 15 highest-paid reporters average close to $1 million per year; then go read Deadspin to find out how many of these guys are pricks.

Old things are worthless in this computer world of the future! Look at old, venerable magazine titles. Life? Gone. The Saturday Evening Post? Ha. But the Sporting News—the throwback, stat-filled, serious sports magazine that started publishing in 1886—is trying to stage a comeback against the dominant glossies of today like ESPN Magazine. The Sporting News' three-pronged revival strategy: A digital newsletter; more (ghostwritten?) columns from retired sports stars (Troy Aikman speaks!); and a new column by the soon-to-be-former Deadspin.com cult figure Will Leitch. Hey, one of those might be beneficial!

Watch out, ESPN.com: Google's after your fans. Derrick Eckhardt, a writer at fantasy-sports news site RotoNation, noticed that Google's serving up sports scores to mobile users. Eckhardt's sources tell him that Google has been looking at the sports market for a year, and greenlit a secret project to enter the sports-information business last November. There's no Google Sports portal, and no sign of the effort on Google's regular Web search. Should the likes of ESPN and Yahoo Sports be worried? Google Finance has yet to make a dent in Yahoo Finance. But remember how Google used to point users who typed in street addresses to Yahoo Maps? After Google created its own maps site, the links to Yahoo Maps swiftly disappeared. (Photo by Derrick Eckhardt)

ESPN Magazine is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and you know what that means: it's finally time to become a leader on the fashion scene. Really! The magazine is hiring its first "style director" and increasing its fashion coverage [WWD] because, as they explain rather doubtfully, "People want to know what athletes are wearing to and from the ballpark." What will the sports-centric mag's style look like? We're guessing that the hat that they put on Alex Rodriguez for the issue's cover is a pretty reliable guide to their future in high fashion:

Website College Humor redesigns TV channel logos to reflect the character of their audiences

ESPN and Yahoo Sports are on a hiring binge, bringing six-figure salaries to the generally tame world of sportswriting and stealing talent from print publications who can't afford anything close to the lucrative offers Yahoo and ESPN are serving up. The Washington Post has lost three writers to ESPN in 18 months. ESPN poached longtime Sports Illustrated scribe Rick Reilly for $3 million a year — substantially more than the $1 million he was already rumored to get from the Time Warner-owned magazine. "We are seeing free agency for sports journalists," says Leigh Steinberg, a top sports agent.

Yahoo's hopes to compete with Google and Microsoft in search and online advertising may be a fantasy, but the Internet company is a market leader when it comes to fantasy. Fantasy sports, that is. For those of you who haven't joined the rotisserie leagues, the object is to rack up scores based on the individual stats of imaginary teams made of real players. Not only does Yahoo have a much larger share of fantasy traffic than traditional sports properties ESPN and CBS, but, according to Compete, its lead grew this year with the opening of the 2007 NFL season (football is by far the most popular fantasy sport).

ESPN got sportswriter Rick Reilly from Sports Illustrated for a "five-year, $10 million package." Time Inc. says they would have countered with $1.5 million a year. Seriously? What? Nothing against the dude, but for real? No wonder these people have to lay everyone off once in a while. [NYP]

ESPN is relaunching ESPN360, its sports-video broadband website, but it still hasn't figured out that new media require new business models. The Disney-owned channel has tried to use the same moneymaking scheme that worked so well on cable companies: Instead of charging consumers, charge the distributor. But few Internet service providers bit, limiting the site's reach to fewer than 16 million homes, and failures during the 2006 FIFA World Cup soccer games turned off the few viewers who actually logged on.The Wall Street Journal predicts that ESPN is poised to announce plans to relaunch the channel next month. But instead of addressing the basic problem of access, ESPN is refocusing 360 on live, second-tier events like polo, rugby and lacrosse. Way to make it even more niche.

ESPN, in some bout of misguided integrity perhaps brought on by those fake press conferences they staged with Steve Phillips, has declared certain news sources off limits for its radio affiliates. What kind of trashy, no-talent organizations are so egregious as to warrant an outright ban?

If you read this week's Observer, you might have seen this article about Gary Spitz, a 42-year-old ball boy at the U.S. Open. If you read yesterday's Times, you might have seen this article about Gary Spitz, a 42-year-old ball boy at the U.S. Open. If you happened to be reading the Washington Post around this time last year, you might have seen this article about Gary Spitz, a 41-year-old ball boy at the U.S. Open. In 2002, USA Today had a fascinating glimpse into the life of Gary Spitz, a 38-year-old ball boy at the U.S. Open. And way back in 2001, ESPN took a look at a 37-year-old U.S. Open ball boy by the name of Gary Spitz.

• Sure, Sumner Redstone is selling off Viacom shares, but it's all a formality. It's not like he's seen the new season of "Mencia" or anything. [NYT]
• No matter how many Viacom shares are floating around, Viacom is not buying The Onion. Also, Jon Fine is very disappointed in you, Arianna. [BW]
• When even the mouth-breathers who spend more time with "SportsCenter" than they do with their kids won't buy your phones, it's time to get out of the business. [THR]

• "Katie Couric's deal to move to CBS News is completed in principle, and an announcement that she is leaving NBC might come as early as this week." Which would be a relief, so we could finally stop hearing speculation about it. [TV Week]
• Budget Living's failure shows that indie mags just don't work anymore. But shhhhh... Ron Burkle might hear. [NYT]
• Jim Cramer says the Times should ditch paper and move entirely online. He's crazy, of course, but in that case also probably right. [NYM]
• The NYT's new web redesign — and the Journal's of a few weeks ago — are about creating more ad inventory and adding news aggregators. [Ad Age]
• Is Hearst looking to replace Glenda Bailey at Bazaar when her contract is up later this year? Well, no, says the company, and her numbers look good, too. [WWD]
• ESPN to start broadcasting dominoes games (matches?). Remarkably, this does not seem to be an April Fools joke. [NYT]
• NYO TV columnist Rebecca Dana has a signed picture of Richard Dawson on her mantelpiece. We're a little jealous, to be honest. [Jossip]