Sportsline Launches Sports.com For European Audience

Online sports content network Sportsline USA (Nasdaq: SPLN) has a name that makes it sound like it only focuses on American sports, but the company now has its eyes on Europe. Today, Sportsline USA announced that its Sportsline Europe division has launched a new site for fans of European sports. If nothing else, the new site has a perfect domain name: sports.com.

Sports.com is currently the same thing as football.sports.com, a site that offers live updates, real-time statistics and stories about soccer.

“Most of all, fans want one place to find real-time scoring and analysis from all the great football leagues of Europe, particularly with interest growing in Euro 2000,” said Tom Jessiman, managing director of Sportsline Europe.

E-Commerce Presence on Every Site

Sportsline Europe plans to add sites for rugby, cricket and Formula One autoracing, as well sites for individual countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. All the sites will offer community, fantasy games and e-commerce. Sportsline USA currently sells everything from sporting goods and memorabilia to music, video and books online.

“The sports.com sites will be as comprehensive and compelling for Europe as the Sportsline sites have been for the United States,” said Michael Levy, chairman, president and CEO of Sportsline USA.

Shares of Sportsline USA were up 1-1/4 to 24-1/8 in early trading today after the news was announced.

About Sportsline Europe

Sportsline Europe, a majority-owned subsidiary of Sportsline USA, was formed in May. Intel, MediaOne Ventures and Reuters also have stakes in the venture. In May, Sportsline Europe acquired European sports site SportsWeb from Reuters. Sportsline also purchased Infosis Sport, a leading provider of real-time scores, statistics and soccer information. Last month, Sportsline Europe signed a three-year promotional and consulting deal with leading sports management company IMG, which produces global sports programming.

Sportsline Europe is hoping that the deals it has with media companies will benefit it in the same way Sportsline USA, which was founded in 1997, has benefited from similar deals. In March of 1997, Sportsline USA officially partnered with CBS and renamed its flagship Web site CBS Sportsline.

Sportsline USA’s site is now promoted prominently during CBS Sports programming.

In addition to publishing its primary site, Sportsline USA now also produces official Web sites for Major League Baseball, the PGA Tour and NFL Europe.