The "recurring theme" at the Interactive Sports 2000
West conference in Santa Monica this week has been that "the
Internet is allowing teams and athletes to become media
themselves -- owning their own media channel rather than
need to rely heavily on a partner," according to Tom
Hoffarth of the L.A. DAILY NEWS. Bucs WR Keyshawn Johnson,
speaking about his Web site Thursday, said, "My site [has]
only been up for a week, but mine will be more advanced than
probably a lot of sites with athletes because I want to be
involved and be more indepth. ... I'll probably have some
flack with the NFL over some things I want to tap into.
It'll come down to a fine line sometimes. Things like logos
and colors. The NFL may own them, but ultimately we wear
them -- and in fact if we didn't wear them, it wouldn't be
much use to them anyway" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 4/28).
NOTES: In N.Y., Neal Travis reports that MLB is trying
to obtain the domain address MLB.com, which is owned by the
law firm of Morgan Lewis & Bockius. According to the
National Law Journal, MLB has "offered to buy the site, and
it's expected that a fair deal will be made," as Morgan
Lewis "does a lot of work" for MLB (N.Y. POST, 4/28).
...JustBalls.com signed a three-year exclusive ad deal with
USA Today.com, which calls for promotion of JustBalls.com's
storefront through USATODAY.com (JustBalls.com).
STAR POWER: In Tacoma, Art Popham profiled
FanActive.com, which is "now raising money to launch its Web
site," which will include interactive chat sessions with
athletes, an e-commerce section for autographed sports
memorabilia and a bidding area for fantasy sports
experiences. The site "packs enough appeal" that
FanActive.com has "letters of intent from 16 pro athletes,"
including Joe Montana and Magic Johnson. The company will
pay each athlete $10,000-40,000 per year plus stock options.
In return, the athletes "guarantee" the site such things as
200 autographed items and two chats per year. The site has
a target launch date of August 1 (NEWS-TRIBUNE, 4/27).
NOTE: MSNBCSports.com has tapped eFANshop to run its
online fan store set to go live in June (MSNBCSports.com).
