FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NFLE 2/3/98

SUPERBOWL.COM GENERATES 17.5 MILLION ‘HITS" ON GAME DAY

NEW YORK, NY -- The NFL, NBC Sports and IBM announced today that the official Web site of Super Bowl XXXII, Superbowl.com, nearly doubled last year’s audience on Super Bowl Sunday (January 25). On game day, the site registered 17.5 million "hits" with more than 12,000 individual users participating in the live global "cybercast."

Since the site launched in late December 1997, Superbowl.com amassed 69 million hits and 11 million page impressions.

Highlights on Superbowl.com included a live, global "cybercast" of the game with New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel, NBC Sports analyst Bob Trumpy and former Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt. Anthony Munoz, recently named to the 1998 Hall of Fame class, was the special half-time chat guest. The cybercast also featured a real-time scoreboard, stats and live play-by-play.

Additional features included audio from AudioNet’s Webcast of live game broadcasts in Japanese (NHK), Russian (NTV) and Italian (Telepiu), plus live audio of press box and stadium public address announcements, and pre- and post-game player/coach interviews.

For the first time, fans could access instant photos from a selection of six different NBC game cameras. Digital photos from Webcam, produced by Earthcam, provided live updated photos of the game. Photobubbles, created by IPIX, offered 360-degree panoramic views of Qualcomm stadium during the game.

An online store, featuring IBM’s Net.Commerce, enabled fans to purchase official Super Bowl party gear and merchandise, including the ability to order Super Bowl champion merchandise at the conclusion of the game.

In the six weeks preceding Super Bowl XXXII, Superbowl.com provided complete playoff coverage, audio from player interviews, chats with NFL stars, video retrospectives of past Super Bowls, live audio/video coverage of all the activities surrounding the game, interactive games for kids and adults, and comedy bits from Jay Leno characters "Iron Jay" and "Guy Living".

IBM was the exclusive sponsor of Superbowl.com for the second consecutive year and also served as the technology partner - - developing, designing and hosting the site. Superbowl.com will continue to be the ultimate source of information on the Super Bowl through the end of February.

Contacts:
Mary Griswold, NFL, 212/450-2068
Laura Wessner/IBM, 914/499-4508
Robert Silverman/NBC Interactive, 212/664-2756