Will technology ruin sports?

With so much questionable information on the Internet, the websites are "a legitimate source" of news that comes directly from the player, says Robert Riggieri, a Paid Inc. vice president in charge of the websites. The sites may include personal observations or information on lesser-known players that general sites like ESPN.com don't contain, he adds.

Professional leagues and teams are trying to decipher what effect this deluge of information and programming will have on them, Wakefield says. What's going to be the effect of fans using mobile devices at the arena or stadium? Will they be watching replays and videos and, if so, will that change the way they watch the game on the field? "I don't have the answers to that," he says. "Teams are trying to figure out if fans really want all that media content, if you will, at the game - and [wondering if it's] messing up the tradition of going to the game."

Mobile phones "are really becoming like media terminals, the so-called 'third screen' " after TVs and PCs, says Manish Jha, a senior vice president who heads up ESPN Mobile. "Younger people do tend to want to get information in discrete bits, and they do tend to multitask and be on the go all the time.... And certainly this type of medium is ideally suited for fans who are looking to stay connected even when they're not near a television or a computer."

Beyond following teams, "records and stars are a big deal [with fans], definitely," says David Card, a senior media analyst at Jupiter Research in New York. Though pro leagues "try to encourage loyalty" to a specific team, they also want to promote "interest in the entire sport," he says.

Still, Mr. Card remains skeptical that large numbers of people will want to flood their phones with information about sports - or anything else. "I don't think people want a lot of junk on their cellphones," he says.

Many observers predict gambling, including gambling on sports, may become one of the most popular activities on wireless devices such as mobile phones, just as it has become on the Internet.

Fantasy leagues can border on gambling, because some require participants to pay an entry fee and reward winners with a cash prize. ESPN Mobile "will probably stay away" from gambling, Card says, in part because it is regulated state by state and would become complex to sort out the legalities.

The same holds true for sports video on phones, which could become prevalent as more sophisticated handsets hit the market. Complex legal issues regarding the ownership rights of the games themselves, which have already been sold to TV networks, must be sorted out, Card says.

Meanwhile, millions of fantasy league players are using the Internet to learn everything they can about pro athletes to help them judge how well the players might perform. Some know as much or more about certain players than some general managers of real sports teams, Wakefield says. "That's obviously way different [than before the Internet], and that's fantasy [league] driven."

Some fantasy leagues require participants to manage a salary cap, just as real NFL general managers do.

"I think you're going to see more and more niches," says ESPN's Kosner, as fans find their personal passion online. ESPN.com itself is really a network of sites, he says, from boxing to golf, all of which are going to continue to develop and deepen.

And not just for popular US sports. ESPN.com already hosts the world's leading soccer site and is affiliated with the leading cricket site, Kosner says. "I think there's more to come. The Internet helps bring global sports to expats," he says. "That's one of the developments you're going to see more and more."

Page: 1 | 2