Sandbox.com's NCAA men's tournament pool that offers
$10M to anyone who picks all 63 games correctly "seems like
an audacious gamble for a small dot-com that lost more than
$6 million last year," according to Joel Brinkley of the
N.Y. TIMES. As of yesterday, 600,000 contestants registered
for the pool, and Sandbox.com President Lawrence Cotter said
that he "expected the total to approach one million" by the
time the contest closes at noon today. Last year, Sandbox
ran the same contest and offered a $1M grand prize, but
every one of its 160,000 contestants "was shut out in the
very first round." Cotter said that he hopes the contest
lasts longer this year because the goal of the site is to
"gain national attention as well as new members for its
online gaming business." But in the event that the contest
"shuts down quickly again this year," Sandbox is giving away
other prizes, such as a car and entertainment centers, for
people who pick the most winners. The site has signed
several sponsors for the contest, including PhoneFree.com,
who gets top banner placement. Sandbox is also earning
revenue by offering trial magazine subscriptions and
memberships at other Web sites, and Brinkley writes that "so
many people are taking them up on the offers, Sandbox is
getting $3.50 in commissions, and other fees as a result of
each registration." Cotter, on somebody winning the
contest: "That's the second-best thing that could happen.
The first-best thing would be for a hacker to shut down our
site for two hours in the middle of the contest, and we'd be
on the front pages of all the papers" (N.Y. TIMES, 3/16).
WHERE TO GO ON THE WEB: MSNBC.com's Mike Brunker rated
his top Web sites for coverage of the NCAA tournament and
wrote that CNNSI.com "is clearly the best" because it
features "easy-to-find selections" by SI writers and game-
by-game breakdowns. Brunker called ESPN.com a "crowded
site" and noted that CBS SportsLine.com's bracket is
"unreadable on-screen" and must be printed out (MSNBC.com,
3/14). A Forrester Research report predicts that ten
million fans will visit Internet sites for information about
the tournament, outnumbering visitors to Web sites offering
Super Bowl information by 3 to 1 (WASHINGTON POST, 3/16).
TOTAL ACCESS: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE's
David Sweet offers his "hits" and "misses" on the Web. One
of his "hits" is Total Sports' NCAA tournament official Web
site, which offers digital cell phone or Palm VII users the
chance to sign up for real-time scores, tipoff notification
and player scoring info for free. The service is available
for the women's tournament as well (WSJ.COM, 3/16). Total
Sports' www.finalfour.net, the official site of the
tournament, is part of the network of NCAA sites at
www.ncaachampionships.com (Total Sports).
WILL HOST STILL BE ABOARD? BRANDWEEK's Terry Lefton
cites sources who report that SFX and ISL "have been talking
to CBS about selling NCAA marketing rights." Host
Communications holds the rights until 2002. But Host CEO
Jim Host said that he's "as confident as ever" that Host
will renew its deal (BRANDWEEK, 3/13 issue).
