• BusinessWeek, Thursday, April 16, 2009 11:30 AM

Whereas entertainment sites like NBC and News Corp.'s Hulu have yet to make their first dollar, CBS is making a tidy profit selling online sports to advertisers. The recently completed golf Masters and the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which CBS broadcast over the Web as well as on TV, were both a resounding success, BusinessWeek says. The 63-game March Madness tournament, for example, reached 7.5 million college basketball fans on digitally connected devices, raking in $30 million from advertisers like AT&T and Coca-Cola. CBS claims it turned a profit on both online broadcasts.

The obvious takeaway here is that major sporting events remain a huge draw regardless of how they're delivered to end users. "Whether it's radio or satellite TV, sports has traditionally driven access to new platforms," says Arash Amel, a broadband media analyst at Screen Digest.

Indeed, so big is the draw that many passionate sports fans are willing to pay for live access to their favorite sporting events online. Robert A. Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, expects to generate $100 million this year from the 300,000 fans that pay $109.95 a year to stream live baseball games. That figure would represent a 15% increase over last year.

Online streaming may eventually come to the Super Bowl, too. CBS is currently in negotiations with the NFL about bringing the big game to the Web. Last year, the NFL streamed 17 games online with NBC, and claimed success without cannibalizing on TV revenues.

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