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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Web Site Now Has Games Espn’s Sportszone Expands With Electronic Sports Fun

Sun-Sentinel, South Florida

ESPN SportsZone is the first online service to offer an electronic sports site on the web.

The newest SportsZone area, which made its debut this week, features detailed reviews, previews, demos, hints and tips on all of the latest sports games for your personal computer and video market. Warning: It can be addictive.

The sports games category is one of the fastest-growing on the Internet and there is a huge crossover between SportsZone users and people who play video and PC computer games, according to Geoff Reiss, senior vice president of ESPN Internet Ventures. It is a joint venture between SportsZone and GameSpot, the largest source of information about PC and video games.

“It’s a natural progression for SportsZone to expand its offerings into electronic sports games,” Reiss said. In a biweekly national Intelliquest Web survey, three major sports-only sites finished in a three-way tie. ESPN, CBS SportsLine and Time Warner’s CNN/Sports Illustrated all scored high on entertainment, content, appeal and ease of use.

ESPN SportsZone won the People’s Voice Award for best sports site for the second consecutive year at the 1998 Webby Awards. Hockey fans selected the Islanders-Capitals four-overtime 1987 Stanley Cup playoff game as the most memorable NHL telecast on ESPN.

NASCAR Online (www.nascar.com or espn.com) is providing NASCAR Winston Cup fans with door-to-door auto racing with the new NASCAR Championship Challenge. The competition puts fans in the driver’s seat by enabling them to “own” teams consisting of actual drivers. Owners accumulate points based on the performance of their drivers in actual Winston Cup races, using the same scoring system used by NASCAR. Each team owner is given a budget of 100 points to select five active drivers per team. Drivers are assigned point values based on their positions in the standings. It concludes with the May 3 NAPA California 500.