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Internet Sports Network: Zero to 60 and Back Again

ISN stock was trading at $1.20 a share a year ago when it announced a long-term deal to provide its fantasy-sports games to CBS- operated SportsLine.com.

Not long after the Nevada-registered company's shares began trading over the counter in 1999, the stock reached more than $3 a share. When the company announced today it was ceasing operations immediately, ISN shares were trading for half a cent each.

In a press release, the company said it had failed to raise the additional funding it warned in November would be required to keep its doors open.

At that time, ISN reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that, since its inception, it had raised some $11 million in cash by issuing stock, plus some $10.4 million more through loans, promissory notes and convertible debt.

However, ISN said it had accumulated a deficit of nearly $41 million by Sept. 30 of this year and was defaulting on three loans, its promissory note and its convertible debentures. ISN said it figured it would need $4 million cash and a $1 million line of credit to continue operations for the next 12 months, based on revenue of $1.1 million for its most-recent quarter - much of it thanks to its SportsLine.com partnership.

ISN, which reported an average of 48 employees for the first half of 2000 before an initial round of cuts, said today that all remaining employees were laid off Dec. 21.

J. Thomas Murray, the company's chief executive officer, will oversee the liquidation of the company's remaining assets, the statement said.

The online fantasy-sports and trivia games featured on SportsRocket.com and served up for partners such as SportsLine.com were among ISN's many technology and marketing acquisitions.

In the June Bain & Company survey of Canada's "hottest" dot-com companies, published in partnership with Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper, ISN and the other 24 list members were called "the elite warriors in a global battle over who controls the next great commercial frontier."

ISN games covered such sports as Nascar auto racing, baseball, football, basketball, golf and hockey.

Reported by Newsbytes, www.newsbytes.com.

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