Be Free, Inc. Partners With Broadband Sports to Bring AtheletesDirect.com to Sports Fans Across the Web.Business/Technology Editors MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2000 Broadband Sports Enhances its Affiliate Marketing Program with Be Free Technology Be Free, Inc. (Nasdaq: BFRE BFRE Besoin en Fonds de Roulement d'Exploitation (French: Working Capital Requirement for Exploitation) ), the leader in performance marketing, today announced that it has partnered with Broadband Sports, an online media company that provides original sports content to hard-core sports fans. Through this partnership, Broadband Sports and Be Free have developed and launched a performance-based affiliate marketing program for AtheletesDirect.com -- producer and publisher of official online web sites for more than 275 athletes and sports personalities. AthletesDirect is using Be Free's LeadRunner(sm) program to drive traffic to its sites, while paying affiliate partners for each click-through to AthletesDirect.com sites. LeadRunner(sm) is a performance marketing solution that enables online marketers of all kinds--from content sites and portals to search engines and subscription services--to develop affiliate and e-mail marketing programs using Be Free's BFAST BFAST Be Free Affiliate Service Technology (Be Free Inc.) (sm) and B-INTOUCH(sm) services. Using LeadRunner, companies like Broadband Sports can promote content, services, subscriptions or tools and pay affiliates a bounty (flat dollar amount) for every lead or click-through they generate. This program brings the power of performance-based affiliate marketing beyond e-commerce, including content and information sites. "Ever wonder what it would be like to be on a team with Brett Favre or Mia Hamm?" asked Gordon Hoffstein, chairman and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Be Free, Inc. "Now sports fans across the web can team up with these elite athletes and hundreds of others like them by joining the Broadband Sports Affiliate Program. Affiliate partners can enhance their web sites by adding creative links that go directly to the official web sites of their favorite athletes and earn money for each visitor they send to Broadband Sports." "At AthletesDirect, we go beyond the game highlights and post-game analysis, delivering fans access to raw and unedited news and views from the athletes themselves," said Ross Schaufelberger, senior vice president of Business Development of Broadband Sports. "We have partnered with Be Free to develop an affiliate marketing program that enables us to bring athlete news directly to the millions of sports fans surfing the web and cost-effectively drive them back to the athletes' official sites. Be Free offers best-of-breed performance marketing technology and services to build and maintain this affiliate channel." Broadband Sports is offering its affiliate partners a special introductory financial incentive for each click-through to AthletesDirect from affiliate sites. As a bonus, the top five affiliates in Q2 2000 will win two game tickets to watch their favorite AthletesDirect athlete play. About Broadband Sports Broadband Sports is a leading online sports media company dedicated to serving hardcore sports fans. Broadband Sports reaches the hardcore fan by providing its original content and commerce to the Internet's top portals and sports sites as well as through its own branded online destinations. The company offers sports consumers proprietary content and commerce featuring individual athletes as well as college and professional teams across a broad range of sports. The company currently operates four online media properties: AthletesDirect, a leading provider of official athlete Web sites; SportsWritersDirect, a leading source of in-depth team and player information; RotoNewsDirect, a leading provider of fantasy sports information and services and SportsAuthenticsDirect, an Internet retailer of sports collectibles and merchandise. Online users can access Broadband Sports' content and products at www.athletesdirect.com, www.rotonewsdirect.com, and through leading Internet providers, including AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. , eBay, Fox Sports, Lycos, uBid and Yahoo!(R). Broadband Sports, Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, California For other uses, see Santa Monica (disambiguation). Santa Monica is a coastal city in western Los Angeles County, California, USA. Situated on Santa Monica Bay of the Pacific Ocean, it is surrounded by the City of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades and Brentwood on the north, and has offices in the San Francisco Bay Area “Bay Area” redirects here. For other uses, see Bay Area (disambiguation). The San Francisco Bay Area, colloquially known as the Bay Area or The Bay and New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . The company has 180 employees. About Be Free, Inc. Be Free, Inc. (Nasdaq: BFRE) is a leader in performance marketing--the next generation of online marketing. Be Free helps its customers build and manage uniquely branded online sales channels, enabling these sites to capture revenue by driving site traffic, generating qualified leads and selling products in context on locations throughout the Web. Be Free's customers include some of the Internet's leading merchants, online services and portals such as IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : IBM), America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN), GoTo.com (Nasdaq: GOTO), Mercata, Reel.com (Nasdaq: HLYW), C|Net (Nasdaq: CNET (body) CNET - Centre national d'Etudes des Telecommunications. The French national telecommunications research centre at Lannion. ), Garden.com (Nasdaq: GDEN), PC Connection (Nasdaq: PCCC PCCC Passaic County Community College (Paterson, NJ) PCCC Platform Communication on Climate Change (The Netherlands) PCCC Porsche Ceramic Composite Clutch ), Lycos (Nasdaq: LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) A technology used to make microdisplays for rear-projection TVs and head-mounted displays (HMDs). Each LCoS chip hosts a grayscale LCD shutter sandwiched between a cover glass and a mirror. ), About.com (Nasdaq: BOUT) and Yahoo!(R)GeoCities (Nasdaq: YHOO YHOO Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ symbol) ). Collectively, Be Free's customers have more than 3.5 million affiliates in their sales channels. Affiliates can enroll in performance marketing programs using Be Free's technology with a streamlined application form called FastApp, located at http://www.reporting.net/networks/affiliates/bf_fast_app. Founded in 1996, Be Free has offices in Marlborough, MA, Pittsburgh, PA, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, Campbell, CA, Austin, TX and New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY. For more information, visit http://www.befree.com. Statements in this news release about Be Free, Inc. may be considered forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA) implemented several significant substantive changes affecting certain cases brought under the federal securities laws, including changes related to pleading, discovery, liability, class representation and awards fees and of 1995. These statements are based on the Company's current expectations, hopes, beliefs and estimates. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected. Further information about the risk factors that could affect the Company's performance are contained in the Company's filings with the Securities Exchange Commission, including but not limited to its Registration Statement on Form S-1 dated November 3, 1999 and March 29, 2000. |
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