Daily and Sunday Sport newspapers sold for £50m

Once the deal is finalised, Interactive will change its name to Sport Media Group.

The Sport titles were owned and co-founded by David Sullivan, who also owns Birmingham City football club, and brothers Ralph and David Gold, the family behind high street sex shop Ann Summers.

Sullivan is also selling his 49.95% stake in Interactive World for £14.5m, before expenses. In total, he will net about £40m from the sale of his shares in both Interactive and Sport Newspapers.

Andrew Fickling, managing director of Sport Newspapers and proposed executive director of the enlarged group, said he would gradually refocus the editorial direction of the titles and increase coverage and analysis of sport.

He said: "The strengthened relationship with Interactive World is a natural choice providing us with the opportunity to grow in the online and mobile content markets and greatly improve our offering to readers."

Interactive already held a five-year deal with Sport Newspapers to distribute content, including photographs of celebrities in compromising positions, via mobile phones.

Since Sunday Sport launched in 1986, sales have progressively fallen from 600,000 copies a week to just below 100,000, but Fickling said this has now stabilised.

The papers are well-known for pictures of semi-naked women and sensationalist headlines, such as "Adolf Hitler was a woman" and "Aliens turned my son into a fish finger".