Official World Cup sponsor Adidas has signed on as presenting sponsor of ESPN.com’s complete online coverage of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
ESPN’s online resources dedicated to covering soccer’s most prestigious tournament include ESPN.com, ESPNdeportes.com, the company’s Spanish-language website, and ESPNsoccernet.com, the source for online news, information, and analysis in the world of soccer.
ESPNsoccernet.com, published out of the U.K. has unveiled its new World Cup site. It offers soccer fans comprehensive online coverage, complete with live scoring, up-to-the-minute news and information, in-depth match previews and reviews, live chats, photo galleries and video features.
Extensive 2002 FIFA World Cup coverage across ESPNsoccernet.com, ESPN.com, and ESPNdeportes.com includes
1. Live scoreboards, featuring player and team statistics;
2. Up-to-the-minute headline news and information;
3. Profiles for all 2002 World Cup players and teams; in-depth match previews and recaps;
4. ESPN.com's exclusive World Cup GameCast, an interactive application that gives users instant visual match updates on shots, goals, bookings, substitutions and more;
5. World Cup photo galleries, past and present;
6. Live World Cup countdown clock, ticking down to kick-off of the first match; 7. "My Team" personalisation, allowing fans easy access to all the news and scores for their favourite team;
8. World Cup 2002 Challenge, a bracket-style game challenging fans to correctly predict the outcome of the tournament.
ESPNsoccernet.com will also include live text commentary for each match; exclusive interviews from some of the game’s biggest names, including France coach Roger Lemerre; comments from past World Cup winners, including England’s Nobby Stiles and Germany’s Andreas Brehme; and a World Cup Fantasy Game, allowing fans to create a fantasy team and compete against friends and other players from around the world.
ESPNsoccernet.com, which launched in 1995, has gained a reputation for providing the most complete online coverage of soccer’s biggest events. During Euro 2000, ESPNsoccernet’s traffic doubled and the number of users visiting the site trebled, claims an official release. ESPNsoccernet claims to currently generate 72 million page impressions and has 2.5 million unique visitors each month.