Apprise Media Acquires Beckett Publications

Posted on February 11, 2005

Apprise Media LLC, a media company backed by Spectrum Equity Investors, has acquired Beckett Publications, a publisher of sports and entertainment market collectible guides. The company will be called Beckett Media LP. Dr. James Beckett, founder of the company will remain with Beckett as an advisor.

Beckett Publications, based in Dallas, Texas, publishes nine monthly magazines plus periodic collectibles and trading card pricing guides. Titles include Beckett Baseball, Beckett Football, Beckett Basketball, Beckett Hockey, Beckett Racing, Beckett Anime Collector, and Neopets: the Official Magazine. The company also operates Beckett Grading Services, a third-party professional sports card grading service and Beckett.com, an online destination for sports collectible enthusiasts.

"This company has had remarkable growth over the last 20 years, both in print and electronic media," said Beckett. "I am delighted to hand it over to Apprise Media, which has an excellent track record in growing niche media businesses, both print and interactive. I am very confident that Apprise, working with the Beckett Publications team, will take the company to the next level."

Formed in 2004, Apprise Media is a strategic management and investment company. Controlled by Charles G. McCurdy, a co-founder and former President of Primedia Inc., Apprise Media acquires and builds businesses in the targeted media and publishing sectors.

Based in Dallas, Beckett Publications was founded in 1984 by Dr. James Beckett. In the mid-1970s, while a statistics professor at Bowling Green State University, he published his first baseball card price guides as "free-upon-request" pamphlets to, in his words, "bring order out of the chaos that existed" in the baseball card industry. Those pamphlets led to annually published price guides and were the forerunners of Beckett's monthly collectibles magazines.