±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Despite the irony of major online player Sports.com plunging into administration on the first day of the tournament, one major factor supported this claim: games kicked off at 7.30am, 10am and 12.30pm for European audiences, which meant desk-bound fans could go online to keep up with news and scores at work.

So the partnership between world football governing body FIFA and Yahoo!, producer of the official 2002 World Cup site (www.FIFAworldcup.com), had a chance to take internet coverage to a new level. FIFAworldcup.com claimed more than 1.7 billion page views from 31 May to 29 June.

At some stages, traffic to the site exceeded 125 million page views in a single day.

Yahoo! will have an opportunity to build on this with the official web site of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

But did the internet World Cup live up to the hype? "Without a doubt," says Randy Bernstein, Yahoo!'s vice-president, FIFA World Cup Partnership.

"Most sports marketing experts felt the only way to stay up to date with real-time coverage would be via the internet - not in isolation from, but in addition to, TV. People were at work or getting ready to go to work when many games were taking place."

Umbro.com editor Jon Long agrees. "The games took place early in the morning and newspapers were a day-and-a-half behind. There was huge demand for instant knowledge of what happened, he says.

Adam Freeman, head of commercial development at Guardian Unlimited, adds: "The internet did live up to those claims from a traffic point of view and its interactivity allowed users to experience games from a different perspective."

BBC Sport (www.bbc.co.uk/sport) received more than 250 million page impressions in June, and its World Cup site (www.bbc.co.uk/worldcup) had 185 million page impressions.

Andrew Thompson, head of new media at BBC Sport, says: "It was a better World Cup than I anticipated - and my expectations were high. What made this a first for BBC Sport was that it was a joined-up operation with all media."

Sky Sports also saw a significant increase in traffic. Stephen Nuttall, its head of enterprises, reveals: "Page impressions on skysports.com were slightly more than double that of a normal month. It's not that the web has suddenly taken over from TV - it complements it."

Rebecca Ulph, senior analyst at Forrester Research, believes the tournament did live up to the claim of being the internet World Cup, but adds that it didn't go as far as it could have.

"There was nothing live, and access to highlights was restricted, she says. "Clips were only accessible a few hours after the match had ended and users had to pay for them."

A three-way video highlights agreement between FIFA, Yahoo! and KirchSport (Revolution Online, 30 April) saw streamed highlights of all 64 matches hosted exclusively on FIFAworldcup.com for a one-off fee of $19.95 (£13.60).

Final-week packages cost $4.95 (£3.20). Subscribers could view highlights three to four hours after the end of games.

Real-time online streaming would no doubt increase take-up of these sort of services. But while Thompson believe it is unlikely to be available for the next World Cup in 2006, Bernstein remains optimistic.

"In time, we believe the web can play a key role in a closer-to-real-time media opportunity, he says. "We want to add to the benefit of TV, not take away from it. Until the business model changes, so internet streaming can provide significant dollars that are a larger percentage of revenues for rights holders, it won't take the place of TV."

Commercially, major opportunities at this World Cup came from sponsorship deals and online advertising. FIFAworldcup.com secured marketing support from more than 45 companies, including official FIFA partners adidas, Toshiba and MasterCard International.

Elsewhere, Budweiser sponsored Sky Sports' site based on the event, while John Smith's beer was associated with its sports-betting offering. Samsung sponsored the TV area of Umbro's entertaining microsite (www.umbro.com/bunkoff), while Guardian Unlimited's football site (www.guardian.co.uk/football) carried ads from new clients including Coca-Cola and William Hill. It also tied up sponsorship deals with the likes of BTopenworld.

Other money-spinners included merchandise sales and premium services.

Sky Sports, for example, had SMS services that included match results and individual team news.

High traffic should also have built brand awareness. "I would imagine the World Cup has been commercially productive for many of the bigger sites, says Ulph. "FIFAworldcup.com was expensive to create, but it has set itself up for the next World Cup."

But traffic surges created technical problems for some sites. BBC Sport's Thompson says that when traffic was heavy, it stripped down its home page, and Yahoo!'s Bernstein admits: "There were challenges on the opening day of the tournament, but appropriate upgrades were made within 24 hours."

Looking forward, the 2006 World Cup in Germany will have the same timing issues for Asia and the US that Europe experienced this time. But it promises to be even more of a global event. "Hopefully, we will see more in a localised sense, says Ulph. "I suspect there will be partnerships with the main sports sites in each country to boost local content."

Bernstein concludes: "The 2002 World Cup created an atmosphere in which any country felt it can compete with the traditional powerhouses. Interest will be much greater in 2006, which bodes well for the web."