Landmark Media Investments has acquired Benchwarmers. ie, a "sports and banter" site that has a massive 492,000 "likes" on Facebook – making it one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Irish Facebook pages.

Domain registry records show the site Benchwarmers.ie is now registered to Irish Examiner owner Landmark, which is expected to try to capitalise on the substantial number of eyeballs garnered by the "media/ news/publishing" brand.

Benchwarmers aspires to be “relevant, timely and cheeky”, while the desktop version invites visitors to sign up to “the daily BenchPress”, which will deliver “banter right to your inbox”.

Landmark’s digital projects manager, Ruairí Roddy, confirmed it had acquired the site and that its Facebook following was attractive to the group.

Originating as a student project at the Cork Institute of Technology, Benchwarmers claims to be the "fastest-growing website in Ireland and is rapidly growing into the UK".

It says it offers “a fresh, honest and funny opinion on all things sport” and promises that “if something big happens in the world of sport, Benchwarmers will have it up on your smartphone in less than a minute”.

It is one of several sport-led digital brands with a relaxed attitude to copyright.