SEC investigates SportsLine.com
SportsLine.com, the sports website company, continues to feel the repercussions from an accounting move announced last year.
BY BEATRICE E. GARCIA
bgarcia@herald.com
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating SportsLine.com and its disclosure last September that it would restate financial results for the past 2 ½ years.
The Fort Lauderdale-based company, which provides online sports information, said in its annual 10K filing Monday that the SEC had begun its informal investigation in December. The company said it was cooperating with the securities regulators and had provided the documents.
The restatement stemmed from an error in the way SportsLine accounted for employee stock-option grants. It involved about 8.4 million options, of which less than 2 percent were exercised, the company said last September. Costs associated with correcting the error will lower earnings by $8 million, the company said.
SportsLine restated its loss for 2001 to $66.1 million from $61.1 million; the loss for 2002 was amended to $50.5 million from $48.2 million; and the loss for the first six months of this year was changed to $22.9 million from $22.2. million.
The company said in its 10K filing that because the SEC investigation is an informal one, it couldn't say when it would be completed.
