In addition to its recent acqusition of video sites Game Daily, Userplane and Truveo, all designed to capture gamers' eyeballs, Time Warner has also been rolling out a strategy to capture sports fans' eyeballs. Time Warner recently announced the launch of mySI, its customizable desktop application of Sports Illustrated. Sports fans will be able to have the latest sports news, scores, highlights and lowlights, statistics and trivia on their favorite football teams sent to them automatically throughout the day while at work. By next year, mySI hopes to include obsessive coverage of both professional baseball and basketball. Makes playing Texas Hold'em online seem like a productive use of time.
Turner Network Tevelevision, a division of Time Warner, this month teamed with PGA of America to bring together live TV coverage of the PGA Championship won by Tiger Woods, in addition to four different broadband channels of streaming video via PGA.com Pipeline. Viewers could watch the action live from the greens on TNT, or viewers could select "Player Cam" and follow a group of players as they tried to chip their way up the leaderboard. Viewers could also try to improve their own game by selecting pointers from the pros on the PGA Learning Center. Viewers could also chose from the many player profiles and favorite moments in golfing history via Inside the Ropes.
David Levy, Turner Sports president, stated that "the online product not only didn't erode our television audience at all, but actually complimented it." With cross promotion from CNN, SI.com, and AOL, TNT logged almost 50 milion page hits during the four days of the PGA Championship. Such cross platform hybrid broadcasting of major sporting events may well be the wave of the future. If Time Warner can get its beef with the NFL Network settled, football fans may be treated to additional simultaneous TV and online productions.
The football teams do not even have to be real. AOL.com launched FanHouse, a series of blogs to connect football fans around the world.75 different blogs will be dedicated to professional football teams, nationally ranked college teams, and even fantasy football teams. Live coverage of sporting events, interactive sports blogging, news feeds and podcasting await. Who needs to wait for the weekend anymore for the big game?










