• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 6, 2006

With the start of the pro football season this week, NBC and CBS are gearing up their sports sites to offer increased NFL content and fantasy football action.

NBC Sports has overhauled its Web site and bought a fantasy sports site to boost its standing in the online sports market as NBC prepares to televise its first regular-season NFL game since 1997.

NBCSports.com will initially focus on NFL- and college football-related content before gradually expanding to other sports.

Through the acquisition of Allstar Stats Inc., which owns popular fantasy sports site RotoWorld.com, NBCSports.com aims to generate more traffic and ad revenue by providing its own fantasy games. Before relaunching as a stand-alone site, NBCSports.com was located on MSNBC.com.

For its part, CBS SportsLine said on Tuesday that it plans to relaunch its NFL coverage, centering on a revamped "Sunday GameCenter" feature that lets fans track live games through text-based play-by-play and color commentary.

Sponsors for the refreshed GameCenter--which will debut in time for the NFL season start on Thursday night--include Dell, Prilosec OTC and EchoStar.

Besides relaunching GameCenter, SportsLine will also introduce a trivia game and a fantasy football game. Trivia Tower will allow football aficionados to compete in playoff-style elimination rounds by answering questions about their NFL knowledge.

Heads Up Fantasy Football lets participants compete in fantasy football on a game-by-game basis rather than through a league over the course of an entire NFL season.

SportsLine's renewed NFL coverage will also include a package of video programs hosted by Jason Horowitz, including "Power Performances," a live call-in show sponsored by Courtyard by Marriott, and the "Visa NFL Preview Show."

In addition to the Website, SportsLine is also relaunching its NFL content for mobile devices by this Sunday. Through a mobile phone or PDA, users will be able to set fantasy football lineups, get instant scoring updates, find game stats and get news headlines and photos.

CBS SportsLine ranked ninth among sports sites--attracting 4.5 million visitors in July, according to comScore Media Metrix. NBCSports.com is not yet rated by comScore because it was part of MSNBC.com before its recent launch.