And the net goes into the ball!

The opening whistle has been blown, kick-off has taken place, and there's all to play for over the coming month.

At stake are the Football Association's rights to broadcast England internationals and FA Cup matches.

Already one of the biggest media deals in town, this time it promises to rake in even more money for the FA thanks to the inclusion of internet rights.

Soon, it is said, we will be able to sit down in front of our computers and watch broadcast-quality sport on the net.

A major step towards that goal comes next week, when boxing promoter Frank Maloney launches his Fightnight website.

Wimbledon had its own channel, but only a minute of play each day

For the first time, images of a commercial boxing match in the UK will be broadcast live and exclusively on the net. Users will be able to see the flyweight bout free on a RealPlayer and Mr Maloney is also promising on-site betting during the fight.

Sky led the way last year when, in November, its sport channel staged a webcast of a Scotland-England soccer match, although this was broadcast simultaneously on satellite television.

Today it sounds novel, but in six to nine months live webcasting of sport will begin to be commonplace, says internet analyst Gerry Mulvin.

The crucial turning point will be greater bandwidth capacity, says Mr Mulvin, of consultancy Bain and Co.

Currently, standard methods of compressing the big amounts of data that make up a moving image, make for juddery and pixelated images.

Broadband revolution

The promise of broadband technologies such as ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line) and fibre optic connections, which are slowly being rolled out across the UK, make TV-quality pictures a reality.

Mr Maloney, however, sees no reason to wait. He knows his viewers may not be overjoyed with the current technology, but first-mover status is crucial, he says.

Watch it on the net - "minority" sports will benefit

At the moment, the value of all sports rights around the world is about $20bn, according to sports rights agency Media Content. The proportion of internet rights compared to those for traditional media, remains a tiny minority - about 0.05% reckons Media Content's Jean-Paul de la Fuente.

Ian Edwards, television marketing director of the All England Tennis Club, which controls broadcast rights for the Wimbledon tennis championships, says last year it broadcast just one minute per day of highlights on the web.

Television rights meanwhile, allowed broadcasters several hours of daily coverage. This disparity reflected the relative demand for the two media, says Mr Edwards.

But Mr de la Fuente reckons within the next 10 years the market in internet rights could grow to represent a third of the total.

Technology convergence

At some point, the distinction will become irrelevant since television and the internet technologies will, many predict, become one and the same.

That anticipated convergence has already been mirrored in the merger of old and new media companies Time Warner and America Online. Mr Mulvin believes this media colossus will waste no time bidding for sport rights across its platforms.

Sport draw millions of TV viewers in the UK

Sport, he says, is the "content" that all major players will be seeking.

"So many people love it and the cost of putting it together and covering it is so much less than anything else with that sort of return. It's the best value for money content.

"I wouldn't be surprised if AOL were in a few months to start bidding to buy television stations in Europe and so maybe nine months from now, AOL will be bidding to broadcast rights to Premiership football in England."

Naturally, all this entertainment will not come free but on a pay-per-view basis.

Yet, in terms at least of the Wimbledon fortnight, Mr Edwards says the benefits will be many and varied.

"It will mean people will become more involved with the championships and they will be able to interact. They can find out details about players and maybe chat with them in a web forum."

Who wins?

So, say the new media companies, ordinary sports fans are on to a winner. But probably not as much as the rights holders. For them the emergence of a new platform represents the chance to play a whole new set of broadcasters off against each other in a bidding war.

The FA's lead in selling off internet rights separately is bound to draw much interest when the winners and their bid prices are eventually revealed towards the end of June.

And the new media, with its promise of global coverage, will do nothing to deflate professional footballers' already-bloated egos says Mr Mulvin.

"Sports stars will be making more and more money and certain sports games will be much more popular than others. American football, which is limited to the US, will have little appeal to outsiders.

"But our football is a universal sport and so the rights will be phenomenally valuable. So fans will pay to watch an international game, but someone in Turkey will also pay to watch a Man United match."

Yet fans of minority sports currently shunned by major broadcasters also have cause to be cheerful. The net's theoretically infinite capacity and ability to unite interest groups around the world promises to deliver live coverage of sports like gymnastics and hockey.