In spite of all the predictable "Computer
Nerd" stereotypes which are so often associ-
ated with the Internet, a growing wave of
Sports related sites are beginning to appear
on the World Wide Web. Some of these sites
contain information about a variety of
sporting activities, while others are devoted
to the delivery of sports scores, team or
player profiles and competition rankings.
In this edition of Cool Pick Hotel, we
check out some of the latest Sports related
offerings.
SITE OF THE WEEK
Despite the fact that SportZone is one of
the first true "pay for use" sites on the World
Wide Web (more on this later), it is by far
the most impressive sports site on the Inter-
net. Everything about this site says the word
"class".
For those of you who are not familiar
with ESPN, first a bit of background. ESPN
is a 24hour a day cable sports network based
in the US. It is renowned for its comprehen-
sive coverage of major international and
domestic US-based sporting events.
SportZone was set up as a logical exten-
sion of ESPN's broadcasting services. By
taking advantage of ESPN's existing re-
sources, SportZone brings play by play
coverage of major US sporting events to the
Internet. For example, if you are an NFL
fan, there are play sheets, graphics and
charts showing scoring drives, background
interviews and all the latest locker room
news. Baseball, Basketball and even sports
like Golf, Sailing and Soccer are all covered,
along with all the latest news from the
ESPN Newsdesk.
There is one catch, however, to access
SportZone you will need to pay either a
monthly or yearly subscription fee. When
you pay this fee, you will be given a pass-
word and a user ID which you need to use
whenever you visit the site. For some people
this may be a turn off, but with the extensive
sporting coverage provided by SportZone,
the fee will, for most avid sporting fans,
be a small price to pay. In reality, it is a bit like
puchasing a sporting magazine where the
pictures, video clips, stories, player stats and
team standings are updated continually.
TOP THREE
With over 70 percent of all web sites still based
in the United States, many international
visitors will be pleased to hear that not all of
the Sports-related Web sites deal with just
US sports.
The AUSPORT project, operated by the
Australian Sporting Commission, is one such
site. If you are interested in Rugby League,
Cricket, Australian Rules Football or Net-
ball, then this site is a good place to start
your explorations. In fact all of the major
and many of the lesser known sports played
in Australia are featured on this site.
Apart from being a great source of in-
formation about sports played in Australia,
this site also contains an extensive collection
of links to sport related sites and indexes in
many other parts of the world.
Audionet has been making a name for
itself, in recent months, as the World Wide
Web equivalent of a radio station. By making
use of the realtime audio technology developed
by Audionet provides Internet users with a variety of
talk shows and other radio programs.
One of the Audionet feature services
revolves around the delivery of live sport
broadcasts. Provided that you have at least a
14,400bps modem and a copy of RealAudio,
you can listed to a play by play descriptions
of major games and even events like the
World Series while connected to the Internet.
As with any program delivered by Real-
Audio, the quality of the sound is greatly
limited by the speed of your Internet connec-
tion and its links to other sites, but as a
novelty item, Audionet is definitely a winner.
Audionets sports programming is not
limited to the broadcasting of games. There
are also a variety of dedicated sports pro-
grams available, such as "Lets talk Fishing",
"Redskins Live!", "Pat O'brien on Sports", the
"Hank 'The Hammer' Goldberg Show" and
comments from the "Sports Brothers." On the
other hand if you haven't got time to listen to
a full program, you can choose from selected
interviews with people such as George
Foreman, Mike Ditka and Deion Sanders.
ESPN is not the only commercial sports
group that have decided to make the move
onto the World Wide Web. Sports Illustrated,
the sports magazine of choice, also operates a
web site which contains feature articles from
the latest edition, and a number of Web only
stories as well. Principal amongst the Web
only features are the hourly news reports and
up-to-the-minute team standings which are
available by category for Basketball, Foot-
ball, Baseball, Hockey, and Other
Sports.
For NFL fans, the Season Preview area
features team profiles, stats and players to
watch out for in the coming season. In addi-
tion, the NFL Classic area features an online
Pro Football Almanac which includes: team
by team results, historical and all time stats
as well.
Natually, there are also a regularly
updated collection of those famous sports
photographs and images available for
download as well. In fact the only thing
missing seems to be a photo spread from the
swimsuit issue, but then again, that's al-
ready available everywhere else on the
Internet.
JUST FOR THE HECK OF IT
As a special bonus, this week, I have
included a site that really shows how diverse
the World Wide Web is, and also makes the
point that if you want to get global recogni-
tion for just about anything, then the Web is
the place to start.
For those of you who don't know what
Footbag is, maybe you have heard the term
Hackysack. If not, basically the whole sport
revolves around kicked a small bag filled
with rice, beads, gravel, sand or whatever, up
into the air. Sounds like fun, huh ? There are
individual and team competitions, freestyle
footbag challenges, and a yearly Interna-
tional challenge. If you want to find out more
about this exciting sport then the Footbag
WorldWide site is the place to start.
Apart from the novelty of the sport, this
site also provides a very good example of
what can be done on the World Wide Web.
Apart from the mandatory links to other
Footbag related sites, comprehensive tutori-
als, competition rules and playing tips there
are also a number of movie clips ( just in
case you haven't got the idea yet) that dem-
onstrate the finer skills of footbagging.
Finally, Cool Pick Hotel is looking for
your input. While we spend many hours each
week combing the World Wide Web looking
for cool sites, with thousands of new pages
begin added each day, there may be sites
that you have encountered which
deserve our attention.
If you have located such a site, or maybe
have an idea for a Cool Pick Hotel feature
topic, why not drop me a line at
wtatters@world.net. To make sure
that your
message catches my attention, place the
worlds COOL PICK HOTEL in the subject.
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/Global Internet Solutions.
