Internet

Site helps fans stay up to date

Online coverage of the NCAA Tournament is intended to supplement a television broadcast, but the decision by CBS to cover the war in Iraq and move first-round games to ESPN could change that for a decent number of basketball fans.

ESPN is seen in 20-million fewer homes than CBS, meaning that those rare Americans who have Internet access but not cable television were left at the mercy of their modems for scoring updates. Online traffic typically is heaviest in the first two days, when hordes of fans are in a more common predicament that involves a computer but no TV: at work.

"These are typically two of our strongest days of the year," said Joe Ferreira, vice president of programing for SportsLine, which is producing the tournament's official site at ncaasports.com.

The site's live scoreboards can't capture the excitement of a down-to-the-wire game, but the updates are quick -- the online clock for Thursday's Southern Illinois-Missouri thriller read "Final" on my computer before colleagues watching on TV had finished their collective "oohs" when the Salukis' last-second shot missed the mark.

In SportsLine's first year with the NCAA it will cover 87 championships, including nine this weekend, from the obvious (men's and women's basketball) to the less popular (check out the wrestling brackets).

Ferreira said the live scoring application is an "extreme upgrade" of last year's NCAA product, and this weekend's scoreboard includes customizable shot charts that trump the ones you will see on TV. The same technology will be available for women's NCAA games.

The television switch to cable could send more people to the Internet, but it also takes viewers away from CBS, which owns about 31 percent of SportsLine's stock. ESPN still plugged the sites -- which compete against its own -- but if anything, the military activity in Iraq will -- and surely should -- affect traffic to NCAA coverage online.

"I think if we have any negative effect on traffic, it'd be from the war itself and the interest there," Ferreira said. "Obviously there are more important things happening in the world during this NCAA Tournament."

GUEST INSIGHTS: SportsLine already has an impressive final four of its own, landing a quartet of coaches for guest columns throughout the tournament. Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson, Purdue's Gene Keady, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Mike Jarvis of St. John's (which is playing in the NIT) will offer thoughts each week and after the championship game.

The initial musings made for good reading because they came as much from fans as coaches. Jarvis identified three schools as the biggest potential Cinderella stories: Butler, Manhattan and San Diego. Sampson, writing that "some people have more proverbial sleepers than a coma unit," chose one from each region: Illinois, Marquette, Maryland and Mississippi State.

NCAA TID-BYTES: Kudos to ESPN.com and SI.com for showing a little perspective, keeping prominent headlines on their pages for coverage of the war. ... ESPN.com's Page 2 is having fun with The Daily Quickie NCAA page. It proudly touts an estimated figure for the loss in corporate productivity due to workers watching the tournament: $1.8-billion.

-- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, e-mail staff writer Greg Auman at auman@sptimes.com .

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