This summer's World Cup in France "could stir up a
frenzy of activity online," with CBS SportsLine, ESPN
SportsZone, CNN/SI and Fox Sports Online (FSO) expecting to
"score serious points with advertisers" during the event,
according to Richard Tedesco of BROADCASTING & CABLE.
SportsLine USA President Michael Levy "projects" a $1M
return from his company's two World Cup sites, which are
being operated in conjunction with the London Daily Mail.
One of the sites, Soccernet.com, offers content in six
languages, and is already "drawing 500,000 page views
daily." FSO's site is a collaborative effort with The Times
of London, and will use Microsoft's NetShow technology to
track tournament action. The FSO/Times Web site is co-
sponsored by Puma. Tedesco adds that CBS SportsLine and FSO
"already have scored" with English-speaking soccer fans via
their affiliations with well-known newspapers. Tedesco:
"Along with ESPN, they will have particularly strong
positions in the US online market when the final matches
begin" (Richard Tedesco, BROADCASTING & CABLE, 3/16 issue).
NOTES: The Total College Sports Network (TCSN) last
week recorded over 65 million page hits and 25.7 million
page views to finalfour.net, the official site of the NCAA
men's and women's basketball tournaments. TCSN estimates
that over 2.7 million users visited the site (THE DAILY)....
Last Monday, the day after NCAA tourney pairings were
announced, ESPN SportsZone recorded 1.1 million visitors,
which "outscored its previous one-day record" of 882,757 set
February 18. The site became the "first Internet sports
site to record 1 million visitors in a single day." In
addition, the site's Pizza Hut Tournament Challenge has
drawn "nearly" 200,000 participants. Last week's online
chat with Dick Vitale drew 105,000 users (B&C, 3/16 issue).
