After its "shaky beginnings," CBS SportsLine has
"fortified itself," according to David Sweet of the WALL
STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE, who notes the site's traffic
"regularly exceeds" CNNSI.com's, FoxSports.com's and The
Sporting News Online's. Also, "about 2 million visitors
have registered at www.sportsline.com, giving the firm a
valuable database." Sweet credited SportsLine's growth to
its "promotion-for-equity deal" with CBS in '97. SportsLine
CEO Michael Levy, on the deal: "You can't make it without a
television partner." Paul Kagan senior analyst John Mansell
says SportsLine has a "terrific brand name," and predicts
the company "might wind up with a bigger partner at some
point." But despite the CBS pact and Levy's "promise of
break-even cash flow in domestic operations by year-end,"
Sweet writes that money is "still a concern" at SportsLine.
The company's stock has "collapsed" from a 52-week high of
83 1/4 in December to 14 11/16 on Tuesday. Levy "doesn't
anticipate a profitable quarter until late 2001 -- the same
time Barron's ... predicted SportsLine.com would likely run
out of cash." Levy, on Barron's estimate: "They read the
stuff wrong. [The company's European venture Sports.com]
makes our losses look worse than they are. We don't need to
raise any more cash. We'll only burn through about $8
million this year" (WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE, 6/21).
LEVY ON COMPETITORS: Sweet notes that while AOL's
merger with Time Warner, owner of CNNSI.com, "jeopardizes"
the renewal of SportsLine's content agreement with AOL, but
Levy said, "AOL only accounts for 12% to 13% of traffic, and
I think we'd keep that even if we lost them as a partner."
Sweet adds that Levy "freely lambastes the competition." On
FoxSports.com: "They just have an inferior product to ours."
On CNNSI.com: "CNNSI (traffic) jumps in February. It's the
swimsuit issue. It's not really sports vs. sports." On
ESPN.com: "We focus on online sports every day. The
Internet people (at Disney) are well down the (company)
ladder. I think that hurts them" (WSJ.com, 6/21).
