SportsLine.com Achieves Record Ad Revenues, Traffic for NCAA Men's Basketball Championship
| |||
|
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL (March 21, 2000) - SportsLine.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLN), the leading global Internet sports media company and publisher of CBS SportsLine (http://cbs.sportsline.com) today announced that its coverage of the 2000 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship set all-time records both in advertising sales and traffic to its Web sites. Sponsorships for the Championship exceeded $4 million, representing SportsLine.com's all-time largest for a single event. There are approximately 35 sponsors for the event, including Oldsmobile, which is sponsoring the brackets contests and content, Agilent, Budweiser, Conseco, E-Trade, Delta Faucets, Intel, Isuzu, Keen.com, Nasdaq, Nike and Nortel. The first two days of the Men's Championship resulted in SportsLine.com's top two days ever for page views. On Thursday, March 16, the opening day of the Championship, SportsLine.com received approximately 31.5 million page views, and Friday, March 17, SportsLine.com received approximately 33 million page views. For the four-day weekend (Thursday-Sunday), SportsLine.com received more than 93 million page views. CBS SportsLine is the only Web site offering the live audio feeds of CBS Sports' television broadcasts and video highlights of all 63 Tournament games. The rich, engaging content and live audio and video feeds found on the site are being served by Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), the foremost provider of global, high performance services for the delivery of Internet content, streaming media, and applications. At the peak of traffic, Akamai served over 14,000 simultaneous audio streams for CBS SportsLine. At peak times during the first two days of the Men's Championship, SportsLine.com incurred approximately 330,000 hits per minute, yet efficiently handled the spikes and consistently served the pages in the same manner as an average traffic day. By the completion of the Championship, more than 300,000 unique users are expected to have entered one of CBS SportsLine's March Mayhem contests. Additionally, since Selection Sunday, March 12, more than 100,000 new members have joined CBS SportsLine's innovative SportsLine Rewards program, which is designed to encourage consumer loyalty by rewarding members with unique experiences and merchandise in exchange for points earned for viewing pages. "These revenue results again demonstrate SportsLine.com's ability to monetize traffic more effectively than anyone else in the online sports industry," said Michael Levy, founder and CEO of SportsLine.com, Inc. "Our record page views are a result of CBS SportsLine's coverage being unsurpassed in depth and speed, and the addition of video highlights and live game audio this year further differentiates our content from everyone else. The bottom line is that SportsLine.com is able create the best content, attract users and create opportunities for advertisers to reach their demographic in an exciting, interactive manner better than anyone else." CBS SportsLine's March Mayhem site features the deepest coverage of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship, including the most current scores in a variety of forms and up-to-the minute statistics for every game of the tournament through its exclusive Tournament Live feature. This unique multimedia application allows fans to feel like they're watching the game, even when they can't be watching the game on CBS Television by providing an animated game simulation including a game statistics sheet with shots, free throws, fouls, complete game statistics and simulated fan sounds. Other features highlighting CBS SportsLine's site include live interactive regional brackets; extensive coverage of the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship; a variety of contests; team information and matchup breakdowns; chat and fan forums. Fans can also purchase a full line of merchandise with an emphasis on teams participating in the tournament at http://shop.sportsline.com. About SportsLine.com, Inc. SportsLine.com, Inc. is at the leading edge of media companies providing Internet sports content, community and e-commerce on a global basis. SportsLine.com, Inc.'s content includes more than one million pages of multimedia sports information, entertainment and merchandise. Founded in 1994 as SportsLine USA, Inc., the Company changed its name to SportsLine.com, Inc. in November 1999. Its flagship Internet sports service (http://cbs.sportsline.com) was renamed CBS SportsLine in March of 1997 as part of an exclusive promotional and content agreement with CBS. SportsLine.com, Inc. produces the official league Web sites for Major League Baseball, the PGA TOUR and NFL Europe League, and serves as the primary sports content provider for America Online, Netscape and Excite. In May 1999, the Company commenced operations in Europe through its majority-owned subsidiary, Sports.com Limited. Note: This press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. SportsLine.com's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include, among others, competitive pressures, the growth rate of the Internet, constantly changing technology and market acceptance of the company's products and services. Investors are also directed to consider the other risks and uncertainties discussed in SportsLine.com's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including those discussed under the caption "Risk Factors That May Affect Future Results" in SportsLine.com's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K. SportsLine.com undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements, which may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. For further Information, contact:
| |||