SportsLine.com's league management product and its basic single game will be, for the first time, co-branded and accessible to users both on CBS SportsLine.com and NFL.com. For CBS SportsLine.com users the games will be available as CBS SportsLine.com Football Commissioner, in association with NFL.com and CBS SportsLine.com Fantasy Football 2003, in association with NFL.com, respectively. For NFL.com users the games will be available as NFL.com League Manager, powered by SportsLine.com and NFL.com Fantasy Football 2003, powered by SportsLine.com, respectively.
The league management product is designed for a group of people (friends, co-workers, family, etc.) wanting to form their own league. It features one or more "team owner(s)" serving as the league manager, with fully customizable rules and scoring. Every owner in the league receives a content-rich, statistics-supported and personalized Web site with premium features such as live scoring, customizable reports and complete wireless access.
New additions this year to the league management product include the ability to use individual defensive players, increased simplicity to the league set-up process and navigation as well as even more flexibility in terms of customization of league rules.
The league management product is priced at $159.95 per league, with an "early bird" discount of $20 (to $139.95) for leagues that pay on or before August 19, 2003.
Individual fantasy players seeking a league can play the basic single game either by joining an existing league, or creating a new league for others to seek out and join. The rules and scoring are pre-established, while players receive all of the premium features available in the league management service. Each single game league consists of twelve teams and each team has a list price of $19.95, currently available at a discount price of $14.95.
CBS SportsLine.com users also can compete in basic single game leagues for cash prizes. "Gold" league teams sell for $39.95 each, with league winners receiving $200; "Platinum" league teams sell for $99.95 each, with league winners receiving $600; and "Diamond" league teams sell for $249.95 each, with league winners receiving $1,600. These cash prize games will not be available on NFL.com.
"Working together with the NFL to offer a selection of our fee-based fantasy football products directly to NFL.com users will enable SportsLine.com to grow our fantasy business faster and more effectively," said Mike Levy, founder and CEO of SportsLine.com, Inc. "We've enjoyed a great relationship with the NFL and are looking forward to expanding it with this new agreement. This provides us with another catalyst to ensure we reach our targets both in terms of subscribers and revenue produced."
This is the first year that NFL.com is offering selected subscription-based fantasy football games in addition to free games. Last year, NFL.com offered a free basic single game which totaled approximately 1.6 million teams in approximately 130,000 leagues. This year, NFL.com will offer the NFL Challenge and NFL Touchdown games free to consumers. SportsLine.com re-introduced fee-based fantasy sports on its CBS SportsLine.com Web site in 2002 and generated approximately $9 million in revenue from approximately 850,000 teams in approximately 65,000 leagues playing fantasy football.
NFL.com is part of the NFL Internet Network, and has been produced and hosted since 2001 by SportsLine.com, Inc.
About SportsLine.com, Inc.
SportsLine.com (Nasdaq:SPLN) is at the leading edge of media companies providing Internet sports content, community and e-commerce. As the publisher of CBS SportsLine.com and the official Web sites of the NFL, PGA TOUR and NCAA Sports, the Company serves as one of the most comprehensive sports information sources available, containing an unmatched breadth and depth of multimedia sports news, information, entertainment and merchandise. SportsLine.com also serves as a primary sports content provider for America Online.
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