Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has taken an
ownership position in ActiveUSA.com, the official Web site
of the National Sports Network. ActiveUSA.com, in
conjunction with SportingAuction (www.sportingauction.com),
will auction off the yellow jersey worn by Armstrong
beginning August 20 at www.activeusa.com. Proceeds will
benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation (ActiveUSA.com).
WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE? In Australia, Penelope
DeBelle reports on TeleTrak, a company which is planning to
build three private race tracks in South Australia which
will host horse races without spectators present but will
broadcast the events live on the Web. TeleTrak
Communications Manager John Hodgman: "Attendances have been
declining appallingly right around the country. I think it
is a terrible waste of money." The tracks will cost $51M
and TeleTrak says that it is "holding talks with American
investors" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 8/20).
MORE NOTES: PGA.com recorded its largest traffic ever
for a PGA.com cybercast event during last weekend's coverage
of the PGA Championship. The site received 201 million
hits, 48 million page views and 2.2 million visits over four
days. The site reached a peak of over 150,000 hits per
minute on Friday afternoon (PGA.com)....On Saturday, NBC
will debut its Olympics Web site, www.nbcolympics.com, with
coverage of this weekend's World Track Championships. NBC
Sports VP/Press Information Ed Markey: "It's going to be
like nothing you've ever seen before" (USA TODAY,
8/20)....The official Web site of the '99 tennis U.S. Open
is now live at www.usopen.org. The site includes a new
stats section, Event Stats, which provides current match
stats via IBM real-time scoring (usopen.org).
