New-Media Firm Betting Big on Extreme Sports

Photojournalists toting wireless cameras chased after professional surfer Corey Lopez as he squeezed through the crowd at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic surf competition.

Revelers thronged around several digital broadcast cameras, which were being used to film a quick comment from the 22-year-old San Clemente athlete. In the water, Lopez faced even more digital cameras--this time strapped to the back and head of a fellow surfer ready to ride along at the edge of the action.

And in an RV nearby, a crew of computer technicians from new-media company Bluetorch frantically pounded on their keyboards to compile the live footage and push it out to fans on the Internet while Friday’s surfing competition was in progress.

“This is the future of extreme sports, and the beauty of distribution over the Internet,” said Matt Jacobsen, chief executive of Bluetorch’s parent company, Broadband Interactive Group. “If you want surfing on the Net, on TV or in print, you can have it.”

Though extreme sports are still in their infancy, the Aliso Viejo new-media company is betting that low-cost, in-your-face coverage of surfing, snowboarding and motocross can transform the way people watch television and use the Internet for entertainment.

BIG is tapping into the same vision of digital convergence that has inspired the recent merger-mania among technology and media Goliaths. Microsoft Corp., America Online and other giants are scrambling to create an easy-to-use system of distributing news and entertainment material to consumers.

The merging Internet, cable TV and telephone industries are committing billions of dollars to make broadband a reality, spending as much as $500 per house for high-speed connections through a telephone line or a cable. Last year, about 1.1 million U.S. households had broadband connections through cable lines, and 300,000 were using the high-speed service over telephone wires.

And if consumers happen to like extreme sports, BIG wants them to be watching--and buying products from--its Bluetorch programs.

According to BIG officials, it eventually will work like this: A teenage girl, wowed by images of towering Tahitian waves, clicks on an icon on her PC and calls up interviews with champion ocean surfers from the Internet. She loves the winner’s cool swimsuit, clicks again and buys it for her boyfriend.

In the next room, her brother is watching TV. He groans as his favorite snowboarder slams into a tree branch, then on his computer clicks to a “boarder cam” replay, torturing himself with a slow-motion shot of the crash from the athlete’s perspective.

Hoping to become a hub for the extreme sports community, the company’s reporting teams are going around the world to capture on digital tape as much as they can. And BIG, with its live-events unit, is hosting and producing as many functions as it can--such as pro surfing events in Huntington Beach and Tahiti.

At the weekend’s BIG event in Santa Cruz, the cameras caught not only the event but the scene as well, from the bright winter sun warming the tree-lined coast, to the thousands of revelers who descended on this hippy town like pilgrims arriving at Mecca.

The Bluetorch team, all with sun-creased skin and wearing their baseball caps backward, works in a debris-strewn trailer where cables and wires snake across the RV’s coffee-stained counter tops and computer technicians are busily transferring feeds over a high-speed, wireless network and out onto the Net.

Outside, Bluetorch photojournalists Andrew Rakow and Larry Oliver are among the crew that is capturing everything for viewers at home. There are shots of surfers on the waves--from the beach and from the boards--and interviews with athletes such as Corey Lopez, who talks about that one ride that felt oh-so-right.

Privately held BIG is betting on this kind of event as its future--and so are its backers. The company’s push into the interactive TV market is also meant to spur broadcasters and cable providers into upgrading set-top boxes equipped with high-speed chips made by Broadcom Corp. The Irvine manufacturer and its co-founders hold a majority stake in BIG, but neither the chip-maker nor its executives will disclose how much they have put into the new media firm.

The idea of investing in multimedia companies is hardly new for technology firm. Semiconductor giant Intel Corp. has poured millions into various ventures, from interactive TV to computer games with film-like graphics, to drive chip sales. The company even made an undisclosed investment in Quokka Sports Inc., a Bluetorch rival.

Critics question whether BIG, which draws its strengths from new media and technology, can remain focused enough to outwit larger competitors, as well as succeed in the publishing and live-event arenas. After all, extreme sports make up a narrow slice of the broader--and more lucrative--market of mainstream sports.

But Jacobsen dismisses the criticism, insisting that the various media outlets “are a natural fit for the interactive product.”

If any form of entertainment is going to be a hit on the Net, BIG executives as well as marketing experts figure, it’s got to be sports.

“Sports fans are the most information-hungry animal on the planet,” said Rick Burton, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. “Everyone in the sports world has recognized the power of the Web. The smart people realize that the future--for younger viewers who are growing up with the Internet--is in extreme sports.”

The Fox TV network found that out. Its Fox.com Web site, which promotes Fox movies and television shows, drew nearly 500,000 viewers in December. But FoxSports.com drew more than 700,000 people to its Web pages.

“That’s a lot of people. Everyone is pushing to find an opportunity online,” well-known sports agent Leigh Steinberg said. “Athletes, coaches, teams, everyone is pushing to find opportunities.”

But mainstream media, eyeballing the NFL and the NBA, are either ignoring or merely dabbling in extreme sports.

“It’s seen as a risk,” Burton said. “The demographic is a terrific one to grab--young consumers who love music, entertainment and technology--but a lot of people are still hedging their bets because they don’t know if they can make money off extreme sports.”

The majority of BIG’s 60-person Bluetorch staff are former or current extreme sports athletes. Alisa Cairns, who runs the company’s live events group, was the U.S. women’s surfing champion in 1995 and 1996. Bill McCaffrey, a professional wake-boarder, and Keith Sasaki, a five-time world champion bodyboarder, are editors at the Bluetorch Web site.

“We have to have credibility within the communities we cover,” said C.J. Olivares, BIG’s vice president of TV. “They know everyone. More important, everyone knows them--and respects them.”

Those contacts, say officials, help the company get material for its push into interactive TV.

BIG has an agreement with Fox Sports Net for a one-hour TV show Monday through Friday. Beginning in July, Bluetorch will work with Fox producers at BIG’s production facilities in Aliso Viejo to broaden its offerings, and add more coverage of sports such as wake-boarding, BMX and freestyle motocross.

BIG also will use the material for its Web site (wwww.bluetorch.com) and in its magazines.

Making a profit from these ventures, say BIG officials, isn’t important right now. But getting material for the Net and TV is.

That’s why BIG recently signed an exclusive deal with top talent firm Endeavor Agency, home of “Titanic” director James Cameron and “Ally McBeal” creator David E. Kelley, to create Internet-only programming. The deal will help them launch an online music division.

“If [BIG] doesn’t have to worry about making money, they can focus on getting a lock on all these ‘anti-establishment’ activities,” Burton said. “The question is, what happens if these guys do become big--and become the establishment.”