Fort Lauderdale, Florida (February 17, 1998) -- SportsLine USA, Inc., (NASDAQ: SPLN), publisher of the award-winning Internet service CBS SportsLine and several other sports-media properties, today announced the launch of SportsLine WorldWide (www.sportsline.com/u/worldwide). SportsLine WorldWide will allow fans all over the world to find comprehensive coverage of their favorite sports, in their own native languages, in one place.
The SportsLine WorldWide site combines the coverage of internationally respected partners Soccernet (www.soccernet.com), CricInfo (www.cricket.org), and GolfWeb (www.golfweb.com) with CBS SportsLine's award-winning coverage of tennis, basketball, American football, and the Olympics.
SportsLine WorldWide users can also keep in touch with sports events and stories in countries around the world, in their respective native languages, through coverage provided in association with major publishing companies. Those partners include O Estado de Sao Paulo (newspaper, Brazil), Verlagsgruppe Fleet (publisher, Germany), El País (newspaper, Spain), and World Online (ISP, Netherlands).
"SportsLine Worldwide's exclusive relationships with all our premier international partners enable us to continue our global expansion and provide the best sports coverage for our truly international audience," said Michael Levy, president and CEO of SportsLine USA, Inc. "By tapping into the fan bases of these sports and these countries, we have introduced our family of sites to many sports enthusiasts worldwide."
Additionally, the international partners are featuring content from SportsLine USA on their Web sites under the heading of "US Sports." This reciprocal content distribution arrangement extends the SportsLine WorldWide brand while offering SportsLine WorldWide's users access to valuable global programming.
Co-produced by SportsLine USA, Soccernet is owned by The Daily Mail, England's best-selling middle-market newspaper, which sells approximately 2.3 million copies daily. Soccernet currently generates more than two million page views per week, making it one of the biggest single-sport sites in the world. Formed in August 1995, the site is edited by Greg Hadfield, an award-winning British journalist.
"We have found an increasing number of visitors to Soccernet from the United States," said Guy Zitter, managing director of The Daily Mail. "The popularity of soccer in America is at an all-time high, and our alliance with SportsLine USA helps expose our service to our greatly expanded audience."
Based in London but managed across 11 countries, CricInfo is among the most visited single-sport sites on the Internet, regularly receiving one million page views a day. The organization was founded in 1993 and is sanctioned by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the governing body of world cricket. The site offers almost 100,000 pages of cricket coverage, including live scorecards of nearly every international game, a complete scorecard archive of all Test and One Day International matches ever played, news and articles from 20 contributing organizations, and profiles and statistics of thousands of cricketers and cricket grounds. Recently, CricInfo, in partnership with Mick Jagger's Jagged Internetworks, became the first Web publisher to manage a RealVideo broadcast which merged video and audio from different sources.
"SportsLine WorldWide and CricInfo will develop cutting edge applications that continue to establish the two companies as leaders," said Simon King, founder of CricInfo. "The North American audience for cricket is increasingly significant, and CricInfo gains a tremendous partner for continuing the most innovative and complete cricket coverage."
O Estado de Sao Paulo is Brazil's oldest newspaper (123 years), with a circulation in excess of 600,000. "The association with SportsLine WorldWide presents an opportunity to reinforce the idea of sports as a means of integration between peoples and cultures," explained Luiz Octavio Lima of the newspaper. "Through this venture, we are looking forward to making sports in America better known in Brazil and vice-versa."
El País is Spain's most influential national newspaper, with a circulation of over 440,000, and its Web site, El País Digital, is the most accessed in the country. "El País welcomes this agreement with SportsLine WorldWide, in the belief that it opens a broad new window for us in the U.S.," said Mariló Ruiz de Elvira, managing editor of El País Digital. "At the same time it offers a value-added service to our readers interested in American sports news."
Verlagsgruppe Fleet is one of the leading Publishing Groups in Germany with magazines including TV Today (Circ 1.3 million), ONline+Computer (Circ 200,000) and Sports TV (Circ 170,000). On the Internet, the TV Today Network is currently one of the top five Web sites in Germany. As part of the Network, the Sport Channel is the premium sport online service in Germany, covering all sports from Soccer to Formula 1. "The partnership with SportsLine WorldWide creates a unique opportunity to work closely together on an international basis and will add great possibilities to our online efforts," said Andreas Schmidt, Managing Director of Verlagsgruppe Fleet.
World Online is the largest and most structured Web site in the Netherlands. It has its own editorial department which on a daily basis reports about news, entertainment, and other issues, mostly in Dutch. "With more than 20 million page views per month, World Online is by far the most visited Web site in the Netherlands" says Eric Tolsma, director of New Business and Programming. "We want to bring to our viewers the best content available, in every area. For American sports coverage we chose SportsLine USA, because they are clearly the best informed source."
The deals enhance SportsLine USA's already strong global presence through the official Web sites of such international stars as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal and its comprehensive Olympics coverage.
SportsLine USA, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLN) is a leading Internet-based sports media company that provides branded, interactive information and programming as well as merchandise to sports enthusiasts worldwide. SportsLine USA publishes several sports Web sites including CBS SportsLine (cbs.sportsline.com) and Soccernet (www.soccernet.com) and exclusive Web sites for sports teams, organizations and superstars such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal. SportsLine USA's most heavily trafficked Web site, CBS SportsLine, features more than 200,000 pages of multimedia sports information, entertainment and merchandise covering all major collegiate and professional sports. SportsLine USA was founded in 1994, and its primary Web site was renamed CBS SportsLine in March of 1997 as part of an exclusive five-year promotional and content agreement with CBS Sports.
For information contact: Bret Werner/Jerry Milani, Alan Taylor Communications. (212) 714-1280