The Vikings signed a two-year, revenue-sharing deal
last summer with Clear Channel Communications' sports-radio
station KFAN-AM to produce an Internet-exclusive broadcast
on the team's Web site, becoming the only NFL team to
provide separate game broadcasts on the radio and Internet,
according to Judd Zulgad of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE.
Vikings Exec VP/Business Operations Mike Kelly, on the
Webcasts: "Our Web traffic, relative to the league, has been
outstanding. We are not making the kind of revenue on the
cybercasts we would have liked to have seen, but it's such a
new product that it wasn't entirely expected that it would
be a big moneymaker." Clear Channel Communications Exec VP
Mick Anselmo: "If I would have looked at this strictly as a
revenue generator, I probably wouldn't have proceeded. But
that's not what this was about. ... I think we've been
wildly successful." The NFL offered the Vikings "the chance
to make" their Webcasts part of the league's deal with
Yahoo, but the Vikings declined in order to keep their own
revenue. But "how long" the team "continues to do a
separate Webcast depends on the team's radio partner,
CBS/Infinity's WCCO-AM. Infinity does not allow for audio
streaming on the Internet (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 12/21).
