Zardon

NEW YORK — Cash-hungry sports broadcasters are expanding use of controversial "virtual" ads.

The digitally inserted ads, such as logos that appear painted on the field, don't exist outside TV screens. TV viewers will be seeing more of them on major sports events such as the World Series.

"You'll see more experimentation as the technology becomes more sophisticated," predicts Mike Aresco, senior vice president of programming for CBS Sports.

Why? The cost of broadcast rights for sports events is going up faster than ad income. And the extra bucks can subsidize popular gimmicks such as virtual "first-down lines" in football telecasts.

Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, call the high-tech ads an "Orwellian" blurring of the line between ads and programming. Albert May, chairman of the journalism department at George Washington University, asks: "Where will it stop? Will they fill the empty seats with artificial people?"

But David Sitt, co-chief executive officer of PVI, the leading producer of such digital effects, says virtual ads enable advertisers to get inside the game — and "inside people's minds."

Fox's goal is to have "virtual signs" that look like the real rotating ad signs behind home plate in many ballparks, says David Hill, chairman of Fox Sports. Fox is trying to avoid a repeat of last year's World Series flop, when its first attempt at virtual home plate ads — for Fox shows such as Ally McBeal — was criticized as obviously fake and obnoxiously large. Michael McCarthy