Rebels hope fans surf way to merchandise purchases

Steve Addy

Friday, July 21, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

Preaching to the choir is well and good, but getting them to buy licensed apparel and game tickets is much more lucrative.

Among college athletic departments, UNLV learned earlier than most that the Internet isn't merely a place to post basketball statistics and news releases for your most web-wise fans.

It's a marketing tool with remarkable potential to bolster the department's pocketbook and popularity by reaching Rebel backers around the world.

UNLV's official sports site -- www.unlvrebels.com -- is entering its third year as part of the FANSonly Network, an Atlanta-based Internet provider that operates websites for nearly 90 universities. UNLV and FANSonly recently signed a contract extension through 2003.

FANSonly's roster is impressive, including colleges such as Notre Dame, Michigan State, UCLA, Florida State, USC, Miami (Fla.), Ohio State, Illinois, Utah and Nevada-Reno. Those schools can be accessed through www.fansonly.com. FANSonly also operates the official websites for the Mountain West Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference and the Orange Bowl.

"UNLV was among our first schools," said Chris Boyer, FANSonly public relations manager. "It has been a good partnership. We redesigned their site recently and it's very nice. It will be a very effective vehicle for them to reach their fans."

UNLV's site includes links to each of its teams, including scores, stats and news, but the online store is the burgeoning aspect. Fans can buy hats, T-shirts and a variety of Rebel items without leaving their computer chair.

Tickets can't be purchased on the site, but schedules and detailed seating information are posted and updated daily.

"We are thrilled with the whole site, especially the merchandise area," senior associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie said. "I think it is actually one of the better sites in the country."

Though UNLV's site is sharply produced and rather complete, like other schools, the Rebels are still learning as they go.

"We're still in the infancy stage with the Internet," Koloskie said. "We are looking at ways to maximize the potential, but we want to do it with a plan.

"In the last year we've made an aggressive attempt to look at partnerships in advertising and sponsorships. We had the All-Millenium (basketball) team, which was sponsored by Pacificare (of Nevada), and that was a revenue producer. There's potential for more interactive projects like that."

Responsibility for generating Internet ad revenue has been transferred to ESPN Regional, as the university's new sports rights-holder. Aside from taking over broadcast operations for Rebels football and basketball, ESPN Regional is in charge of selling most of the athletic department's signage and advertising.

The ESPN Regional deal took effect only this month and a sales staff is still being hired.

"When we're up and running, it'll make sense for people who want to do business with UNLV to look at the Internet as an integral way to reach the public," said Tina Kunzer-Murphy, manager of the ESPN Regional office at the Thomas & Mack Center.

"The Internet is going to be very important to us. We're talking about a whole cluster of people who do business there. Advertisers will be able to reach people who went online to buy a hat or a T-shirt or a basketball."

How many people will those advertisers be reaching? Plenty, according to FANSonly's Boyer. Figures compiled by FANSonly showed about 150,000 UNLV web page views last November at the start of basketball season. That number improved to 265,000 in March, when the Rebels made the NCAA Tournament field after winning the Mountain West tournament.

Schools receive reports on page views and "unique visitors" monthly or even weekly.

"UNLV is a basketball-oriented school. That is obviously their top time for page views," Boyer said. "Among the 60 schools on our network last season, they probably ranked around 20th to 25th in views. That's pretty good, because they are up against some big schools."

For instance, Notre Dame, the first school to sign with FANSonly in 1996, ranks first with approximately 2 million page views during peak months -- football season, bowl season, the NCAA Tournament. Michigan State got 910,000 views in March while winning the tournament.

"Michigan State sold a ton of merchandise on the site that month," Boyer said.

Such sales explosions are a windfall for the school and FANSonly. The web company does not pay rights fees to schools, but negotiates a percentage of the profits from merchandise and advertising. It costs FANSonly $40,000 to $50,000 a year to maintain each website, Boyer said, and those percentages are the foremost way for FANSonly to recoup expenses.

Giving back a piece of the profits is a small price to pay for such a professional website and FANSonly's turn-key approach, Koloskie said. For UNLV or any university to operate its own site would require the school to add much personnel and buy a lot of computer hardware.

Instead, each school's sports information department submits material to FANSonly, and has only occasional involvement after that. FANSonly does the rest.

Boyer said, "FANSonly is a great way for schools to keep from having to take risks. In the end, we are taking all of the risks right now. We're the most-trafficked network in college sports on the web. I think schools are finding out pretty quickly what a financial and time investment it would take to do their own site."

Apparently, schools are getting the message. FANSonly has about 20 new university sites in the design stages.

"ADs have had it pounded into their heads the last few years about what a vehicle the web can be, what a revenue source it can be," Boyer said. "Seeing the attention that college administrators were giving the web three years ago and now is like night and day. They are becoming much more sophisticated about it."