Golf coverage is "expanding" on the Internet, as CBS
SportsLine, ESPN.com and CNNSI.com have all "made big moves
to upgrade golf content and e-commerce this year," according
to David Sweet of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. A Yahoo! search
revealed 6,717 Web sites devoted to golf, "more than twice
as many as" baseball and the game's demos fit in with data
that shows the household income of the average U.S. Internet
user is $61,500, with 40% of those holding professional or
managerial occupations. Sweet wrote that SportsLine "has
made the biggest splash in golf" by acquiring GolfWeb,
taking over the production of pgatour.com and purchasing
golf equipment retailer Golf Club Trader. SportsLine has
seen an increase in its golf merchandise sales, bringing in
more than $2M in golf revenue between April and June of this
year, accounting for 68% of its total e-commerce. In '98,
golf items generated less than $300,000 for the site. ESPN
Internet Ventures Senior VP/Programming & Production Geoff
Reiss, whose site has "combined" its golf coverage with
GOLFOnline, said that the sport "may end up being just as
lucrative" for ESPN.com as baseball or football since
"there's probably more demand [for advertisers] to be in
that section than in a typical section" on the site.
CNNSI.com Interactive Coordinating Producer Joey Trotz:
"Golf has risen to the top of the most heavily hit sections
at CNN/SI.com, and there are plenty of other good sports out
here" (WALL ST JOURNAL, 8/18). An Alta Vista search shows
that Tiger Woods references on the Internet outnumber those
of any other pro golfer. The top five: Woods (31,621), Greg
Norman (13,024), Ernie Els (8,596), David Duval (8,564) and
Fred Couples (8,427) (GOLF DIGEST, 9/99 issue).
