Aims for US market with new portal site

365 Corp. is going after the US soccer market by repackaging its popular sites for an American audience -- though at this stage the redesign seems to be basically changing the word "football" to "soccer".

The company Thursday announced the launch of soccer365.com, which will join such properties as football365, futbol365, cricket365 and rugby365. soccer365 will be used to introduce New World audiences to the existing English and Spanish properties before being developed into a stand-alone site.

365 has also struck up a deal with Fox Sports International to reach US viewers during soccer programming. soccer365 will have promotions in about 50 percent of the network's football programming for an initial 12-month period.

365 isn't the first to recognise that Americans might not be immune to the appeal of football, the world's most popular sport. Soccernet, for example, was launched in England but finally became a part of Disney's ESPN.com site in the US.

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