Minute sells the story. And the machinery.

A sports highlight looks like a finished product. A shot goes in. The crowd rises. Someone presses play. For the publisher showing that clip, however, the interesting part begins elsewhere: permission to use it, software to deliver it, an advertiser willing to pay, and enough revenue left over to justify the exercise.

That less photogenic sequence explains Minute. The company associated with Sports Illustrated, The Players’ Tribune and FanSided also sells the infrastructure that makes digital publishing work. Its own newsrooms need video, distribution and advertising. Other newsrooms need those things too. Minute has made that overlap a business.

First, give the fans a microphone

The company began in Israel in 2011, founded by Asaf Peled, Yuval Larom and Gili Beiman. Its original football business became 90min. The premise was straightforward: fans had opinions, phones and an appetite for participation. A sports publication could make room for them alongside the professional voices already holding the microphone.

Expansion followed the geography of football. In 2012, the business added English, Italian, Spanish and German coverage. By 2015, commercial partnerships included Nike and Paramount Pictures. One later campaign put footballers through a lie detector, asking whether they practiced goal celebrations in the mirror. Sports marketing could afford to loosen its tie.

There was a technical conviction underneath the fun. Peled told Jefferies that the founders wanted their own content management and distribution platform to reduce dependence on social media. The editorial product and the delivery system developed together. That matters: the software was attached to a publishing problem from the beginning.

The newsroom becomes the showroom

Minute acquired The Players’ Tribune in 2019 and FanSided in 2020. They brought different relationships with the audience. The Players’ Tribune specializes in athletes telling their own stories. FanSided organizes coverage around fandom and communities. Sports Illustrated, whose publishing rights arrived in 2024, added an established journalistic institution.

Those distinctions help explain the portfolio. An athlete’s personal essay, a team community’s argument and a reported magazine feature earn attention in different ways. Shared infrastructure can serve all three without requiring them to sound alike. The company also gets operating experience from the same tools it offers outside customers.

For a publisher, Minute Video combines playback, video management, content and monetization. Its SmartMatch system selects contextually relevant video playlists for articles. Imagine a basketball report accompanied by an appropriate licensed clip, without an editor manually building a new playlist for every page. That is the workflow the product promises to simplify.

Minute SSP handles another part of the transaction: connecting publisher inventory with advertising demand. The company emphasizes budgets negotiated directly with brands and agencies, plus automated floor pricing and supply path optimization. The pitch is incremental demand and less operational work. The real test for a customer is the revenue and experience on its own pages.

Buying the missing pieces

In January 2024, Minute acquired STN Video. The reported price was approximately $150 million. STN brought video technology and relationships covering official highlights from major North American sports leagues. These rights matter because a fast player cannot supply permission to show a game. Technology and authorized content solve different parts of the same problem.

In September 2025, Minute announced its acquisition of VideoVerse, owner of Magnifi. That added AI tools designed to identify key moments, produce highlights in real time and distribute short videos. Combined with the existing platform, the strategic intention was clear: cover more of the distance between an event happening and a monetized clip reaching a viewer.

Minute occupies an unusual market position. ESPN, The Athletic and Bleacher Report compete for sports attention; video platforms and advertising vendors compete for publishers’ infrastructure budgets. Minute participates in both markets. Its distinction is the combination of editorial operations, licensed content, distribution and monetization. Whether that combination beats separate suppliers depends on the customer’s needs.

A famous name comes with obligations

The Sports Illustrated transaction needs careful wording. Authentic Brands Group owns the brand. Minute obtained digital and print publishing rights in March 2024. The previous operator, Arena, had missed a quarterly licensing payment, leading Authentic to revoke its license. That failure preceded Minute’s arrival; it was not evidence of a failed Minute experiment.

A publishing license creates responsibilities as well as opportunities. Recognizable letters on a cover cannot replace reporting, editorial judgment or reader trust. Minute’s technology may make distribution more efficient. The quality of the journalism remains a separate obligation. That tension is part of the business, even when the software behaves perfectly.

A shorter name, a longer job description

In August 2026, Minute Media became Minute. The company grouped its technology under the Minute Platform; STN Video became Minute Video. The change acknowledged a business that had grown beyond publishing individual destinations.

“It became clear that our name no longer told that story.”

Asaf Peled · August 2026

The destinations keep expanding too. Sports Illustrated announced its free, advertising-supported SI TV channel in January 2026. In October, it announced a Rachel Nichols weekday show scheduled for October 19. Old reporting brands are seeking new screens while the infrastructure business supplies the machinery behind the viewing.

The lesson readers can borrow is practical: a recurring internal problem may contain a product. First solve it in an operation that exposes its weaknesses. Then establish whether anyone else will pay. For Minute, that requires content rights, useful distribution and advertising economics that hold up. A collection of tools alone cannot make the audience press play.