The NCAA News - News and Features

June 2, 1997

College World Series scores a home run on the web

The College World Series will generate millions of hits this year.

Although offense has been in plentiful supply in Division I baseball this year, those hits will come not from baseball bats but from the new College World Series Web Site, which began service May 19.

The web site has provided score updates and stories through the regionals of the Division I Baseball Championship, but its main emphasis will be the College World Series, which is being played May 30-June 6 in Omaha, Nebraska.

The web site can be accessed through NCAA Online (http://www.ncaa.org).

Total Sports and Host Communications, the same team that joined with the NCAA for coverage of the 1997 Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Championships, now will bring the same type of complete coverage to baseball fans.

The College World Series features the eight regional champions competing against each other in a double-elimination tournament to determine the champion of college baseball over the course of 15 games.

The official College World Series address is www.ncaabaseball.com and is accessible through links posted on NCAA Online.

The site provides conference playoff results, national rankings, selection brackets, travel and ticket information, team information, interactive games, a review of the 1996 championship, a live scoreboard, and stories from multiple outlets.

The site will feature "cybercasts" of all College World Series games. A cybercast includes live still photographs from multiple camera angles, real-time statistics, charts, live audio and play-by-play summaries, all of which can be updated in a matter of seconds. In addition, the cybercasts will include graphic-oriented pitch and hit charts updated real-time.

"Putting the games in cyberspace will enable people from around the world to share in the special experience of the College World Series," said Dennis L. Poppe, NCAA director of championships.

The basketball web site proved to be enormously popular throughout March and early April, generating a total of 32.8 million hits and 9.8 million page views.