The NCAA News - News and Features

April 13, 1998

NCAA to create Web site for all championships

The NCAA and Total College Sports Network have signed a four-year deal to create and maintain a championships World Wide Web site in association with NCAA Online, the Association's existing Web site.

The new Web site, located at www.ncaachampionships.com, will feature complete news coverage for all 81 NCAA championships, along with information on tickets and venues, participating schools and student-athletes, and selected cybercasts.

NCAA Online and the Total College Sports Network recently collaborated on finalfour.net, the official site for the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Championships, which set an NCAA record for online traffic. The popular site, which featured game cybercasts, a Java-based "desktop" scoreboard, news, statistics and even interactive computer video games, attracted 109 million hits, 43 million page views and 9.2 million Web users over the course of the tournaments.

"We're very excited about the figures and very pleased that we've begun a long-term relationship with the Total College Sports Network," said Wallace I. Renfro, NCAA director of public relations.

Cybercasts, which were so well received that they attracted an estimated one-third of finalfour.net's traffic, will likely be a popular component of the new championships site. Events that had previously been cybercast on NCAA Online will now be on the championships site.

"We had success cybercasting the College World Series last year with NCAA Online," said Ezra Kucharz, chief executive officer of the Total College Sports Network. "And we look forward to doing it again this year as well, along with men's and women's soccer, women's volleyball, and other cybercast events we may add throughout the year."

More than 9,200 teams and 24,000 student-athletes compete annually for the title of National Collegiate champion. The NCAA sponsors 81 national championships in 22 sports that involve more than 500 preliminary and finals competitions at various sites throughout the United States.

Of the 81 championships, 42 are for men, 36 are for women and three -- fencing, rifle and skiing -- are coeducational.