Sport on the internet: Super Bowl's silver service

As one might imagine, American football is well-served by the Internet. Tomorrow is Championship Sunday, with the Super Bowl champs Green Bay at San Francisco for the NFC title and Denver at Pittsburgh for the AFC honours. Super Bowl XXXII is in two weeks' time in San Diego.

The official National Football League site is a good starting place. It contains direct links to all 30 clubs, though you do need to know the insignias for a quick access, news, tables, and week-by-week breakdown of the season. Each club site has their seasonal record, players' and coaching roster and a good selection of video and audio clips. The site is running a fantasy Super Bowl play-off, with all the previous 31 winners matched up in a draw, with visitors to the site invited to vote on each game. The '72 Dolphins, the only unbeaten side in NFL history, get a bye.

You can also buy the NFL Family Cookbook, which contains Brett Favre's recipe for crawfish etouffee and Tom Coughlin's Fried Cakes, apparently the diet for most pro footballers.

All the big American TV networks provide good coverage from their sports sites. The best is probably CBS Sportsline which has all the expected news and views with a live representation of games as they happen. CNN has joined up with Sports Illustrated for their site, good for the season's and career leaders' stats.

ESPN SportsZone is mostly news, but has a link to their radio site, which broadcasts throughout the day with the latest NFL information. Fox Sports, which is covering this weekend's games, has the advantage of a column by the sport's premier commentator, John Madden. Most of the teams have their own websites, with the Packers' the most up-to-date. By yesterday morning, their site already had a report on Thursday's training.

The American obsession with food is also included within the NFL Players' site where there is a Player Cook section. This week's recipe is potato skins from Jim Schwantz, a 49er linebacker. Somehow one cannot see an equivalent section in an English Premier League site with players waxing lyrical on biryanis and burgers.

ADDRESSES

Official NFL site - http://www.nfl.com/

CBS Sportsline - http://www.sportsline.com/

Fox Sports - http://www.foxsports.com/football/

ESPN SportsZone - http://ESPN.SportsZone.com/nfl/index.html

CNN & Sports Illustrated site - http://cnnsi.com/football/nfl/superbowl/32/

NBC Sports - http://www.nbc.com/sports/nfl/

Nando Sportserver - http://www.sportserver.com/SportServer/football/

Official 49ers site - http://www.sf49ers.com/

Official Packers site - http://www.packers.com/

Official Broncos site - http://www.denverbroncos.com/

NFL Players site - http://www.sportsline.com/u/NFLPlayers/