Bad bounce.

Internet entrepreneur Ben Padnos led a group of investors who purchased Barry Bonds' record-tying 755th career home run baseball for $186,750 on auction earlier this year.

The group formed a Los Angeles-based company called EndtheDebate LLC to determine the fate of the ball--because Bonds is suspected of using steroids--while trying to make profit on it as well. A Web site was created to allow fans to vote on what should happen to the ball. Two choices are offered: save the ball or smash the ball and destroy it.

A few days later, fashion designer Marc Ecko created a similar site. Ecko bought the ball that Bonds broke the home run record with during an online auction for $752,467. Ecko then set up a Web site that also let fans vote on the fate of that ball: donate it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame; mark it with an asterisk before donating it; or send into space on a rocket ship.

Ecko's site drew more media attention and Web traffic, in part because it was free. It doesn't cost anything to vote on www.endthedebate.com either, but advertisers have the option of purchasing tiny squares on the background of the home page for $200 each. With 7,550 squares available, the Web site was set to generate $1.5 million. At this point, however, Padnos admits that the group will most likely fall short of its lofty goal despite receiving hundreds of thousands of hits on the site.

"We modeled our business after the success of 'Million Dollar Home Page,'" said Padnos, referring to the Internet phenomenon created by a British college student who made $1 million by selling a million pixels for $1 each on a Web site as a way to fund his college education.

For advertisers who got in early, a mere $200 led to thousands of hits for some their ads, many of which were small businesses. The exposure through that small initial investment allowed those companies to reach a worldwide audience.

"I run a small business myself," Padnos said. "I can't buy a Super Bowl ad, but a small business can get access to a huge audience of people with creative advertising."

Staff reporter David Nusbaum can be reached at [phone], ext. 236, or at [e-mail].