SPORTELAmerica Confirms Sports' Big Biz & Big News.

The fourth annual SPORTELAmerica opened in Miami, the same day in which sports news moved from the sports page of most of the major American dailies into their main sections. On Monday, March 20, SPORTELAmerica's opening day, The New York Times reported that "With Jordan Gone, Basketball Ratings Slump at NBC." The newspaper further disclosed that because of Michael Jordan's retirement, "NBC is now suffering through a terrible NBA year, particularly in primetime, with audiences down by 20 percent." Indeed, sports is big business and big news, and judging from the results of this SPORTELAmerica, one could conclude that sports make for a good TV market.

According to preliminary reports, this year's SPORTEL market attracted 874 participants (up from 720 in 1999) representing 352 companies from 50 countries that exhibited at a total 73 booths. In comparison, last year there were 282 companies and 61 stands from 45 countries. The growth came from the obviously ubiquitous dot-com services to which the SPORTEL organizers dedicated a seminar: HDTV and the Internet.

In describing the seminar, sponsored by the Toronto-based North American Broadcasters Association and the New York-based International Council of NATAS, one could say that it was a tie-less crowd who tied traditional media to Internet start-ups. As usual, the dot coms did not squander the occasion to talk about their industry and how good they are at mastering it. In other words, there was very little in terms of information for traditional folks. The second seminar dealt with "Virtual Imaging," a more down-to-earth topic for a few cognoscenti.

SPORTELAmerica was also about deals. Big business was reported by both the WWF and Grad, the Canadian-Israeli technological company. Indeed, Orad president Jeff Giles mentioned that its CyberSport and ImadGine virtual advertising system will be used during Canadian Football League broadcasts over The Sports Network.

For SPORTELAmerica, Miami means Latin American business and for the Monte Carlo organizers it means a great sister event to Monaco's main sports attraction (SPORTEL) that this year will move to the month of November (Nov. 5-8) versus the pre-MIPCOM dates of September. The fall sports market will be housed in the brand-new Grimaldi Forum which, according to Prince Alexandre de Merode, SPORTEL's president, sits 20 meters under the water in the bay of Monte Carlo. Much like New York City; Monaco can only expand either up or down.

Going back to SPORTEL in Miami, it opened big with a large crowd wandering into the three-floored areas of the Wyndham Resort Hotel in Miami Beach (this year a third salon was opened to accommodate the added exhibitors). The crowds simmered down somewhat on the second and third days and all but dissipated on the last day.

However, the floor traffic could be deceiving since companies such as ESPN, which has rented a smaller stand than previous years, confirmed busy activities in their hotel suites where, in the words of ESPN's Mark Reilly, some 20 executives met with a large group of buyers. Stacey Sobel, president of New York's SPI International, also reported a strong market. "This has been the best SPORTEL I've ever had," she said.