Liam Eagle: LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

As sporting events go, there is no bigger single game than the Super Bowl. As one of the most watched spectacles in television, however,
the Super Bowl carries such a cultural signifi cance that it transcends the strictly-sports world. With one of the largest audiences of any television event, the big game has become a pageant, with its halftime show, and even its advertisements, drawing audiences of their own.

From a Web hosting perspective, the most interesting thing about the Super Bowl – the media event – is the overwhelming evidence of the Internet’s significance as a communications medium, obviously an important development to the Web hosting world. This year, more than ever before, the Internet has become less of an accessory to, and more of an integral part of the Super Bowl media mix – a prime example of the Internet’s key role in communication and commerce in general.

Despite its more widespread significance, of course, the Super Bowl isstill, first and foremost, a football game, and its greatest consequence is to the football audience. In his feature “Hosting the Super Bowl,” Dennis McCafferty explores the massive Web hosting projects behind some of the major information Web sites catering to football fans, including the CBS SportsLine.com sites NFL.com and Superbowl.com, and their parent company’s work with its Web host Savvis. As the big game approaches, traffi c soars on NFL sites, and their publishing and broadcasting eff orts produce some major Web hosting performance demands. The same goes for NFL team sites. Those teams that make the Super Bowl see huge spikes in traffic, and face heavy strains on the e-commerce functions of their online operations.

The Super Bowl can produce some prodigious traffi c for advertisers as well. A TV spot that draws just a fraction of the game’s audience online can mean millions of visitors suddenly arriving at a company’s Web site. In his feature “Web Sites Suit Up for Superbowl Ads,” Jay Lyman discusses the preparations Super Bowl advertisers and their Web hosts make in order to accomodate the fl oods of traffi c their ads can generate.

Advertising is such a signifi cant part of the Super Bowl experience that the competition between Super Bowl advertisers has become almost a game of its own, approached with anticipation by audiences and close scrutiny by the advertising business. Jeff Sanford’s article, “AdBowl Picks a Winner” looks at this trend through the eyes of advertising agency McKee Wallwork Henderson, the operator of AdBowl.com, an Internet project that collects and analyzes viewer responses to Super Bowl advertisements, as the company approaches
a decision on whether to scale back the rapidly-growing project for this year’s game.

And while the Super Bowl’s impact on the sporting and advertising worlds is obvious, it should come as no surprise that the biggest game in sports is also the biggest game in gambling. Wayne Epperson’s feature on the preparations online sportsbooks make to handle Super Bowl bets looks at the impact of the biggest event in gambling on that business’s thriving online set.

While gambling sites take more bets on the Super Bowl than any other sporting event, they also face the threat of extortion attempts
coupled with denial of service attacks from cyber-criminals hoping to cash in on the booming business.

For the few Web hosting companies involved in supporting sites related to the game, the Super Bowl can mean big customers with big demands. But the payoff goes well beyond hosting fees, as these service providers help to shape the Internet’s growing role in the delivery of major media events to the public.