06/01/19 ONLINE SPORTS: CYBER FANS ARE ROARING

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ONLINE SPORTS: CYBER FANS ARE ROARING
Big players are involved. But how do you sell tickets?
The obsession that gripped some top executives at Walt Disney Co. (DIS) in April had nothing to do with the coming sweeps ratings for its ABC network. Instead, Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner and ESPN top exec Steve M. Bornstein were scouring the Internet for news about Dennis Rodman's rebounds or Michael Jordan's scoring. In their off-hours, the Disney executives were battling in a 10-person company ''fantasy basketball'' championship--ESPN SportsZone's Web version of the age-old simulated league play. ''It's addicting,'' says Eisner, who finished third, behind a couple of guys who he jokes ''aren't going to be working here much longer.''
Team Disney is just part of the crowd at a growing number of Web sites geared toward sports fans, among the most rabid of Internet users. The need for hourly fixes of scores, statistics, and news updates makes sports tailor-made for the Web, where material can be updated constantly from anywhere around the globe. ''They only need to hear about the nuclear test in India once, but sports scores keep changing by the minute,'' says Geoff Reiss, senior vice-president for sports at ESPN Internet Group.
So far, the competition for the attention of sports buffs is as fierce as any on the playing field--but not nearly as lucrative. Disney and media rivals News Corp. (NWS), Time Warner (TWX), and CBS (CBS) all have sports sites that offer timely stats and news for free, with advertising accounting for most of the revenues. Today, though, none of these sites is generating enough cash to be profitable and they're not expected to for at least five years, says analyst Patrick Keane of market researcher Jupiter Communications. By then, say analysts, ad revenues will rise and Netizens will be more comfortable with paying online subscriptions, which today range from $7.95 for a tip sheet to $29.95 for a fantasy league membership.
The key is building a huge following, a strategy already in play. CBS Sports-Line saw daily visits triple in January from a year ago, to nearly 478,000. That was enough to send the stock price of SportsLine USA Inc. (SPLN), CBS's Fort Lauderdale partner, to $34 a share, from $8 when the company went public in November. And it helped prompt Disney to spend an estimated $250 million for the two-thirds it didn't already own of Web publisher Starwave Corp., which has joint ventures to produce sites for partners including ESPN, the National Basketball Assn., and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).
The top sites feature brand-name backing: ESPN SportsZone, CBS Sports-Line, and CNN/SI. But a host of others are tapping in--from the Sporting News to IBM's Olympic site. Even No.1 search engine Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) has a sports area that gets as much traffic as any of the top three, says Tonya Antonucci, sports producer at Yahoo!
The main players, though, have the added oomph of cross-promotions with their TV, cable, and print outlets. ESPN can put hyperactive basketball commentator Dick Vitale on its site, while CNN/SI, launched last July, generates statistics or sports tidbits that find their way into CNN's sports shows or Sports Illustrated magazine.
The real secret weapon for these sites is the main event. Biggies such as the World Series or the Super Bowl increasingly prompt newcomers to look for the nearest sports site. CNN/SI, for example, saw its ''page views,'' or number of pages called up on a Web site, jump to 160 million in April from 125 million the month earlier because of interest generated by the NFL draft, as well as the Masters golf tournament that month. On all sites' radar is next month's World Cup soccer championships. SportsLine already has signed up $1 million in ads for the games from eight major sponsors, including Hewlett-Packard Co. (HWP) and Sprint Corp. (FON).
In time, sports sites may yet prove to be the Super Bowl of the Internet. And media companies are at their chalkboards trying to figure out how to make the play work.
By Ronald Grover in Los Angeles

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