Rivals.com Hosts Online Contest with Buick to Attract College Football Fans and Increase Buick Brand Awareness

Business Wire, Oct 2, 2000

Business/Sports Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 2, 2000

Rivals.com (www.rivals.com), a leading online network of sports team and affinity channels and the "stickiest" sports news site for 13 consecutive months according to the Nielsen//NetRatings at-home user data, today announced that Buick selected Rivals.com to help build brand awareness of the Buick Century and LeSabre models.

Rival Networks' advertising staff worked with Buick to create the "Bowl-Bound Brain Buster!" contest, in which college football fans answer trivia questions in order to win an all-expenses paid trip for two to the 2001 Federal Express Orange Bowl in Miami.

"This partnership with Rivals.com utilizes the latest in rich media advertising technology and exposes us to a new, valued buyer while helping to build the Buick brand," said Casey Garwood, Buick's interactive advertising manager.

"Rival Networks is excited to help Buick promote their brands to the sports fan population through the compelling college football content and online communities that our publishers develop on Rivals.com," said Rival Networks Senior Vice President, Advertising Sales David Cooper. "These co-branded contests provide great opportunities for our partners to connect with Rival Networks' millions of users."

The Rivals.com/Buick contest is scheduled to run October 2 through November 15 on more than 180 of the Rivals.com network's college football and conference sites. Creative banner ads will entice sports fans to answer Orange Bowl trivia including past Orange Bowl victories and upsets, outstanding Orange Bowl players of the past and Orange Bowl Stadium facts.

About Buick

Buick, a division of General Motors, has been an Internet leader among automotive marketers. Internet "firsts" for Buick's include:

-- Launched the 1997 1/2 Regal model on-line

-- Offered a $500 purchase incentive in connection with GM's Internet marketing
program, GM BuyPower

-- Created a gift certificate option, which was available for redemption at
Amazon.com for test driving any new Buick

-- Staged a promotion-- titled "Click to Win"-- that offered up to 45 new
Buicks over a 45-day period to consumers who printed out game pieces from
buick.com and matched key words at local dealerships to determine prizes

Buick's lineup for 2001 includes an Olympic Edition of the midsize Regal and a variety of new features on LeSabre, the best-selling full-size car in the United States for eight straight years. In addition, there are new appearance packages and other significant improvements on the flagship Park Avenue and Buick's sales-leading Century. Visit Buick.com (www.buick.com) for more details.

About Rival Networks

Based in Seattle, Rival Networks is a leading infrastructure services company that aggregates online communities into easy-to-navigate networks. The Rivals.com network consists of hundreds of sports-related team and affinity channels, with more than 700 writers and experts who deliver leading in-depth team and player coverage. The European-based Rivals.net (www.rivals.net) network consists of more than 300 team and sport-specific Web sites, covering the most popular European sports. Rivals Japan (www.rivals.co.jp) is a joint venture between Softbank Media and Marketing (SBMM) and Rival Networks, which provides in-depth sports coverage and communities in Japan. The proprietary Rival Networks technology enables publishers to input their expert commentary and news information without having to program or design the site. Investors include Hummer Winblad Venture Partners (www.humwin.com), Intel Corporation (www.intel.com), News Corp.'s News Digital Media (NYSE:NWS), producer of FOXSPORTS.com (www.foxsports.com), The Phoenix Partners (www.phoenixvc.com) and SOFTBANK Capital Partners (www.sbcp.com).

Note to Editors: All brand and company/product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.