December 30, 1998 ABC's Fiesta Bowl Telecast
To Include ESPN.com Data
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
NEW YORK -- Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, hoping to speed up the marriage of the television and the personal computer, next week will show its first sports event to include live, interactive programming on the Internet.
ABC said its Monday telecast of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl -- pitting the two top-rated teams in college football -- will be accompanied by simultaneous data, scores and games from ESPN.com (espn.go.com), the Web site of ABC's sister cable sports network.
The online data will include live player and team statistics, penalty explanations and sports news, and an interactive game enabling PC users to guess which player will carry the ball on the next play. The online programming will be integrated with the game on ABC.
The online programming, which is free to users, was developed largely in-house by Disney. Kevin Mayer, Disney's senior vice president of strategic planning, said about 10 million households in the U.S. have Internet-ready PCs in view of the television. He said he expects as many as 100,000 U.S. households to take advantage of the new service during the game.
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