January 07, 2002

U.S. Olympic Team Plays on Yahoo Shopping, Sports Channels

Accelerating its Internet initiatives a few weeks ahead of the Salt Lake City Games, the U.S. Olympic Committee opens an online store on Yahoo today.

The store on shopping.yahoo.com complements U.S. Olympic team content on Yahoo Sports. The editorial content will be sourced from usolympicteam.com, the USOC's official site.

"The primary goal is just reach," said Matt Rightmire, vice president and general manager of the media group at Yahoo, Sunnyvale, CA. Yahoo will offer the USOC exposure to the more than 20 million people who visit Yahoo Shopping each month, he said.

Items in the Yahoo Olympic store include team apparel like parkas, sweaters, accessories and fleece. T-shirts, pins and memorabilia also are on sale. Roots produces the merchandise.

Part of the sales will go to support the 2002 U.S. Olympic team.

While the Winter Olympics are on next month, Yahoo Sports will offer extensive content sourced from usolympicteam.com. Yahoo claims its sports section is one of the most popular global sports sites. Through its partnership with the USOC, Yahoo also will drive traffic to usolympicteam.com.

Yahoo's partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee is part of a strategy to ally with leading sports bodies worldwide. Yahoo has relationships with the National Football League, National Basketball Association and Federation Internationale de Football Association, better known as FIFA.