It's as if the guy lugging the Olympic torch fell into a manhole somewhere between Sydney and Salt Lake.
That's the situation with the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games' online presence, since Quokka Sports -- the long-struggling Web company that had been contracted to produce the official Olympics site as well as NBC's Olympic presence -- declared bankruptcy at the end of April.
Although the 2002 Winter Games won't begin until next February, some who have worked on past Olympics sites said that such sites should ideally be ready to go many months before the opening ceremonies, in order to attract advertisers.
But NBCOlympics.com and SaltLake2002.com, the official site of the Games, are pretty skeletal so far. The NBC site offers highlights from the Sydney Games, and the Salt Lake site sells tickets for the upcoming Games.
Kevin Monaghan, an NBC vice president who is directing the company's online Games effort, said that the network is busy trying to find a new partner now that Quokka has perished. "We have spoken to about three dozen companies at various levels," he said, "and we were discussing various levels of participation. We've narrowed it down to two or three who can give us excellent distribution."
Monaghan would not disclose which firms were on this short list, but said an announcement would be made "in about a week."
The heart of this matter, though, goes beyond the mechanics of NBC's business deals. During these uncertain times in the Web business, the major effort it would take to bring the Games to the Internet will create some appealing opportunities for those with production experience. And many unemployed Web workers are starting to see the Games as a great way to get short-term work.
Several former-Quokka types, many of whom spent exhausting nights and days working on the Sydney Olympics, told Wired News they would pretty much drop all they're doing now -- which for many of them isn't a whole lot -- to work on the Salt Lake Games.
"Working on the (Sydney) site at Quokka was an incredible experience. Frankly, it was one of the highlights of my career. Really an amazing creative energy and excitement surrounding the entire project," said David Thomsen, one of the few former Quokka employees who agreed to speak on the record.
And given the commitment of Quokkas such as Thomsen, NBC's Monaghan said that it really is a shame the company closed shop just before the games, as NBC was very pleased with their work.
"It's sad about Quokka, because they would have been one of the beneficiaries. We made serious revenue in Sydney," Monaghan said. The execs at Quokka probably aren't too pleased about the way things turned out, either. The company, which launched during the Internet's mid-1990s salad days, set out to "(bring) down the 'old ways' of following sports by launching a whole new form of digital entertainment. It's called Quokka Sports Immersion and it's changing the face of sports coverage as we know it."
But that mission, lifted from the company's site, was soon pitted against the initiatives from CBS and ESPN, which dominated the online sports scene.
By 1999, the company was struggling financially, and it signed what seemed like a devil's bargain with NBC -- which had exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the Sydney Games -- in order to stay alive. Under the terms of the deal, Quokka had access to NBC's Sydney content and paid all production costs to get some of that onto NBCOlympics.com.
Quokka got to keep 51 percent of the revenue from the site, with the rest going to NBC.
At the time, Quokka hoped that some of the tremendous traffic flowing to NBCOlympics.com during the games would spill over onto Quokka's other sports sites, leading, eventually, to a long-term success.
But that didn't quite occur. NBCOlympics was a highly visited site, but according to Nielsen/Netratings, Quokka only received a brief traffic bump due to the Games.
After the Olympics, things died down rather fast for Quokka. Although the company tried several rounds of layoffs and even a reverse stock split to rally its finances, it eventually had to call it quits in April.
But NBC's Monoghan said there's still hope for many of the Quokkas who worked with NBC on the Olympics.
"I'm sure that the worst feeling for the former heads at Quokka is due to all these people being without jobs," he said. "And we learned a lot of terrific things from them in Sydney on how to package the site.
"These guys are in limbo right now, but if there's opportunity, we'd love to have them. They're smart and battle-tested, terrific to be in the foxhole with you."
