Espn Zones In On Sports Fans With Computers

If you lived at http:/ /espnet.sportszone.com, the question is: Would you ever find your way home?

That string of gobblydegook is ESPN’s address in cyberspace, the Internet, and it’s being visited by as many as 50,000 people a day, says Eric Schoenfeld, senior coordinating producer for ESPNET SportsZone.

“First, I heard we were the third most-used Internet site after the Playboy and Penthouse homepages,” Schoenfeld said. “I don’t know where we are now, but I know we’re the most-used sports site in just three months on the Internet.

“We’re taking about 1.5 million hits per day, and that translates to 30,000 to 40,000 people. Some say 50,000.”

ESPNET launched on April 1 in conjunction with Starwave, a multimedia technology company owned by Paul Allen, Portland Trail Blazers owner and co-founder of Microsoft Corp. with Bill Gates.

Among its features are statistics and biographies on every NBA, NFL and major league baseball player, minute-by-minute scores updates, Q&A and live chat with players, minor league and college statistics, boxscores from last night’s action, pictures and sound files from interviews.

Schoenfeld estimates the site already contains 10,000 pages of information, although he hasn’t counted them, “and what you see now is only about 10 percent of what we’re going to be.”

“What really separates us is how timely we are,” Schoenfeld said. “Go to just about any other site on the Internet and see when they last updated it. Our last update was 4 minutes ago. Other sites are updating every day or every now and then. We update by the minute.”

So far, ESPNET makes money through the sales of advertising and a limited amount of marketing.

John Sage, VP of marketing for Starwave, said ESPNET would be introducing a limited premium service on Aug. 15, carrying a monthly subscription fee of $4.95 for certain parts of the service.

And by next year, technology should exist for secure Internet transactions that will allow ESPNET to expand merchandising without giving away your Visa card number to the next 10,000 hackers on line.

“When the Rockets, for example, win the NBA championship, within an hour we could have a line of merchandise available on line for purchase,” Sage said.

Starwave, located in Seattle in the real world, is at http://www.starwave.com in cyberspace. It’s Internet site also includes outdoors and entertainment sections, and without fanfare, Starwave just launched an area called Family Planet full of parenting advice and research.

“The real excitement for this medium becomes apparent when you kind of crystal ball gaze,” Sage said. “There’ll be more people with computers, more people with cable modems, and all of a sudden when you’re reading a narrative online of Todd Stottlemyre blowing up, you can push a button and watch footage of it.

“Or, if you’re a big Raiders fan, you can key up highlights before the game’s over. For a small fee, you can click on an icon and join any game in progress.”

Out takes

NBC football analyst Randy Cross has taken off 60 pounds for the start of the football season. He’s down to 240, so you do the arithmetic.

“It’s good to have a jaw line again, a jaw line and a chin again,” he said. “Before, all I had was a neck with a mouth in it.”

Well, after anybody who cared already knew it, CBS Sports on Monday announced that Martina Navratilova has joined its broadcast team for the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

Navratilova will join analysts John McEnroe, Mary Carillo and Tony Trabert. Play-by-play will be done by Pat O’Brien, Jim Nantz and Tim Ryan.

CBS plans 39 hours of coverage in all, beginning Aug. 28.

Navratilova will meet Monica Seles in an exhibition match on July 29, also on CBS.

Nicole Watson, a reporter-studio host the past six years with Turner Sports, is joining HBO’s “Inside The NFL” as a feature reporter. Watson joined veterans Andrea Joyce and Bryan Burwell as feature reporters responsible for the weekly “Cover Story” on “Inside The NFL.”

“Inside The NFL” begins its 19th season Thursday night, Sept. 7.