Turner Closing In On A $200 Million Deal To Buy Bleacher Report, For Some Reason

That's the word from Peter Kafka. He reports:

People familiar with both companies say they haven't agreed on final terms, but are now negotiating exclusively and have agreed on a price: If the transaction goes through, Time Warner's cable network unit is set to pay more than $200 million for the sports site.

Two hundred million dollars. That'll buy a lot of unpaid contributors!

Turner wants a sports site—it manages NBA.com and PGA.com but owns neither—after it split from managing Sports Illustrated's site. Why not just buy one? Kafka reports that SI and Bleacher Report's monthly traffic (roughly 9 million uniques a month, according to comScore) is about the same. Turner nearly bought Bleacher Report last month before backing out.

[ AllThingsD]