Sports on the Internet is "very much in its infancy" but
there are "clues that say the sports world is convinced that the
Internet is going to be a colossal part of its future. One is
lawyers. The other is advertisers," according to Neil Campbell
of the Toronto GLOBE & MAIL. Reportedly the NBA has told its
attorneys to stop fans from using its logos and team names on
unofficial web site, "fearing competition for the NBA's official
home page."
LEGAL BRIEFS: Geoff Reiss, publisher of ESPNet's
SportsZone, said online sports rights will be a "huge issue" in
the future. Reiss: "How descriptive of real-time events can you
get, because those involve rights that have been paid for."
Chris Carder, who owns a Toronto-based company that designs Web
pages, said censorship and rights issues are coming up first in
sports because of the "ad content that's in sports" and "the
integration of audio and video."
ALL THE KIDS ARE DOIN' IT: Bob Kerstein, Chief Info Officer
at Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment, said "a lot of sports teams
are just waking up to the internet and are now becoming more
proactive. Others are from the old school and for now they're
taking the approach that it isn't really important." Campbell
writes that "just who does and does not have web sites remains
something of a puzzle," as some teams and leagues are more
proactive -- and feed info more regularly -- than others (Toronto
GLOBE & MAIL, 1/20).
