For Immediate Release

April 17, 2000

ACTIVITY UP NEARLY 80% VS. 1999

NFL.com & ESPN.com’s "Draft Central" site generated record traffic with more than 23 million page views and nearly three million visits over the two days of the NFL Draft 2000 conducted on Saturday, April 15 and Sunday, April 16. Overall activity was up 80% compared to 1999.

In 1999, for the two days of the draft, the site recorded 13.1 million page views, and 1.6 million visits.

Draft Central, the special NFL Draft site accessible via NFL.com and ESPN.com, included pre-draft analysis and live draft coverage, with expert commentary and DraftTracker, which enabled users to analyze draft picks in real time and sort selections by player, position, NFL or college team, and other variables.

ESPN’s NFL Draft broadcast encouraged viewers to log on to Draft Central and vote for who they thought each team’s first round selection should be. The results of these polls were then incorporated into the Draft broadcast.

On Saturday, visitors to Draft Central were treated to live chats from the floor of the draft with #1 draft pick Courtney Brown, as well as subsequent selections LaVar Arrington, Chris Samuels, Peter Warrick, and Jamal Lewis. In all, fans chatted with seven of the Top 10 selections and 16 of the 31 players chosen in the first round. Questions were submitted from all 50 U.S. states, and numerous other countries including Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Former Dallas Cowboys player personnel director Gil Brandt served as NFL.com’s host and expert analyst.

In addition to the Draft Tracker, the chats and polls, other fan favorites on the site were the video selections including and NFL Films produced video diary featuring new Washington Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington and the college highlight packages ESPN made available online for the first time. Video was streamed exclusively in RealPlayerÒ format.

Draft Central was produced by ESPN Internet Ventures. NFL.com is a co-production of the NFL and ESPN Internet Ventures. ESPN.com is part of GO Network.

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Eric Handler, ESPN Internet Ventures, (212) 672-2567