FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUPERBOWL.COM DRAWS RECORD TRAFFIC FOR GAME DAY
GENERATING MORE THAN 10.2 MILLION "HITS" AND 2 MILLION IMPRESSIONS

NEW YORK, NY (January 30, 1997) -- The NFL, FOX Sports and Starwave Corporation announced today that the official Web site of Super Bowl XXXI, Superbowl.com, drew record traffic on Super Bowl Sunday, surpassing last year’s traffic by more than 40 percent. On game day, Superbowl.com registered more than 10.2 million "hits" and 2 million impressions (pages viewed).

Superbowl.com showcased interactive features, including:

• A live, global "cybercast" of the game with Panthers QB Kerry Collins, FOX Sports NFL analyst Tim Green and former Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt. Former Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula was the special half-time chat guest.
• More than 4,000 users simultaneously entered the "cybercast."
• More than 500,000 audio files from AudioNet’s Webcast were accessed on game day. These included live game broadcasts in Japanese (NHK), Italian (Telepiu) and French (Canal+), plus live audio of press box and stadium public address announcements, and pre- and post-game player/coach interviews.
• 17,000 users voted in a game day web poll to determine the Super Bowl’s all-time MVP (won by Joe Montana for his performance in Super Bowl XXIV).
• IBM showcased its "bamba" technology, providing streaming (no downloading) video coverage of Super Bowl events.
• PhotoBubbles offered 360 degree panoramic views of the Superdome during game day and post game locker room celebrations.
• The site featured more than 1200 pages of information.
• 68,000 entries in an online sweepstakes to win a trip to Super Bowl XXXI.

The Superbowl.com Web site was sponsored exclusively by IBM. Superbowl.com will continue to be the ultimate source of information on the Super Bowl through the middle of February.

A majority of the site’s traffic came within a six-hour window and was easily handled by the intense infrastructure Starwave assembled. With an operations and engineering staff coordinating 27 different servers, Superbowl.com performed the entire day without incident.

In the month preceding Super Bowl XXXI, the Superbowl.com site provided complete playoff coverage, audio from player interviews, chats with NFL stars, video retrospectives of past Super Bowls and a Super Bowl store. During Super Bowl week, the site reported live from New Orleans, providing up-to-the minute news, digital photos and live audio/video coverage of all the activities surrounding the game.

"Superbowl.com was designed to take the football fan inside the game, on Super Sunday and in the weeks prior to the game, in ways that no other medium can provide," says Ann Kirschner, vice president, NFL Interactive. "With an incredible response rate, we succeeded in developing an effective and entertaining multimedia companion to the game."

"We enjoyed and will continue to enjoy working with the NFL on projects that expand the appeal of the NFL in America and around the globe," said Tracy Dolgin, executive vice president, marketing, FOX Sports.

"IBM's exclusive sponsorship of Superbowl.com created an ideal opportunity to showcase IBM's video technology, which significantly enhanced the users web experience of the game and demonstrates IBM's commitment to the Internet," said Marianne Caponnetto, director of IBM worldwide media strategy and operations.

"Sports content on the Internet is clearly driving an extremely large percentage of daily Internet traffic," says Rich LeFurgy, vice president of advertising and marketing at Starwave. "But for a single-event Web site to generate this level of traffic in one day is a tremendous achievement for the NFL, FOX, Starwave and IBM."

Starwave, based in Bellevue, Washington, is a leading creator of original content for the World Wide Web. Some of the Starwave's award-winning services include ESPNET SportsZone, NFL.COM, Outside Online, Family Planet, NBA.com and NASCAR Online. Starwave was established in 1993 by Microsoft co-founder and technology investor Paul Allen.

Contacts:
Mary Griswold, NFL, 212/450-2068
Vince Wladika, FOX Sports, 212/556-2472
Ken Kerrigan, Edelman PR for Starwave, 212/704-8155