Today's "Online Drive" profiles the Yankees' Web site
at www.yankees.com. The site is powered by CA-based Medius
Interactive, which has worked with the team since '95.
Yankees Multimedia Manager Kara McGovern characterized the
relationship as a trade relationship, but noted that Medius
Interactive keeps a "majority of the ad revenue" earned from
ad sales on the site. The agreement is month-to-month, but
the Yankees are currently in talks with a larger undisclosed
company to give the site a "more East Coast sort of feel."
While a deal is "close," the team will remain with Medius
Interactive at least through the All-Star break.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY: Individual ad sales on the site
are handled by Medius Interactive, while the team handles
package sales. McGovern acknowledged that more advertisers
are asking for a Web presence: "It is now mentioned, but
they are still interested in a presence in the stadium.
It's not their first request." The team has been actively
running promos online, as users can now subscribe to Yankee
magazine and receive a free team duffel bag. Another promo
during last year's holiday season gave a free World Series
program to every user making an online purchase of $25 or
more. The team sells tickets through Ticketmaster and
offers a direct link to the Ticketmaster home page on its
Web site. Merchandise is sold online through Volume
Services, the team's concessionaire. Volume Services fills
online orders and keeps the same percentage of undisclosed
revenue it keeps with stadium sales.
DOWNLOADING DEMOS: Yankees.com recorded 750,000 average
page views during the month of May. McGovern added that
during last year's World Series and the month of October,
the site totaled 6.5 million page views. Upon initially
accessing the home page, users are prompted to register on
site, and the names are placed on an e-mail listserve.
McGovern said that 156,000 total users have registered for
the listserve, which started in May '98. McGovern added
that MBNA used the team's listserve last year for a Yankees
Visa card promotion and said it had "the most successful
turnaround" of any of its previous promotional pushes. In
terms of sharing the listserve demos in the future, McGovern
said that the company "would have to be associated with the
Yankees" and it "would depend on the product and the money."
PHILOSOPHY 101: McGovern said the "goal for the site is
to create the total Yankees experience for our users. So
that our fans -- which are all over the world -- [can] bring
the Yankees stadium experience to them." The site does
feature both real-time scoring and audio broadcasts by
Broadcast.com for the displaced fan (THE DAILY).
