The UA Athletic Department has teamed up with University Netcasting Inc., to create a new home page for the department to be formally launched Nov. 11.

The University of Arizona joined the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Southern California, Texas Tech University and the University of Notre Dame as charter members of University Netcasting's network of official athletic Web sites, sai d Benjamin Padnos, director of marketing for UNI. He said two weeks ago, the UA's sports home page was informally introduced nationally for beta testing.

After not being able to properly staff and update its original home page, because of insufficient funding last year, the athletic department decided to join UNI and attract a larger audience, said Butch Henry, associate athletic department director.

Although negotiations are still under way, the athletic department will receive $20,000 in advance against royalties, Henry said. He said the department also hopes to use those funds to hire additional sports- information personnel to keep up with updatin g athletic information.

"We're excited to unite with University Netcasting and its impressive list of institutions," said Jim Livengood, UA athletic director. "This association is giving us the opportunity to reach a much greater audience, and we're already receiving positive fe edback from our fans."

The ad-based service will allow the UA to attract national audiences and corporate sponsors, Padnos said.

The UA's sports information office will send information via electronic mail on all 18 varsity sports to UNI, based out of Carlsbad, Calif., Henry said. He said UNI will then publish the information at its gateway site, FANSonly, at http://www.fansonly.com

All sites will be updated at least daily and are free to anyone with Internet access and a Web browser like Netscape 2.0, according to a UNI news release.

UNI is an outgrowth of Raycom, The Collegiate Licensing Company, Stella Interactive and iXL, Padnos said. He said it was created to develop and deploy an interactive on-line network for collegiate athletic fans.

The new sports home page will have information on all 18 varsity sports at UA, and the service provides information on all the fall sports, Henry said.

At FANSonly's formal November launch, it will include up-to-the-minute sports information, recruiting columns from leading national experts, and community services such as chat rooms, bulletin boards, interviews and cybercasts, according to a UNI release. Merchandising and shopping services and opinion polls and surveys will also be included in the service.

Henry said University Netcasting plans to work with the athletic department to develop a link to UAInfo on the home page, so students can access other school-related Web sites.

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