Big Blue Scores: IBM has paid an...

Big Blue Scores: IBM has paid an estimated $1 million to the National Football League for the right to sponsor the NFL’s official Super Bowl Web site (https://www.superbowl.com), according to industry analysts.

Although that doesn’t approach the huge sums television networks are paying for the right to air games, it could be a record for advertising on the Internet. Most companies still hesitate to shell out hard money for uncertain returns.

IBM’s $1-million investment doesn’t include the substantial cost to the Armonk, N.Y.-based company of designing the site, supplying a supercomputer and communications system to host it and providing the personnel to maintain it for the several weeks it is available on the Net.

The site offers Jay Leno comedy bits on the Super Bowl, commentary from NFL experts, sales of merchandise as well as live chats with Green Bay Packer and Denver Bronco players and coaches during the game. A similar site last year got 10 million hits on Super Bowl day, and IBM says it has the capacity in place to take as many as 40 million hits next Sunday.

What does IBM get from all that? “It shows we can handle a lot of traffic securely,” says Laura Wessner, a spokeswoman for IBM. “It’s a demonstration of what we can do for people’s businesses.”