• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, November 14, 2002

Fall is Sports Season, But Which One?

Admittedly after the fact, but for those planning or buying Online for next Fall's sports season, here's some exclusive research viewer demographics just released from comScore Media Metrix based on U.S. Internet users from Home, Work and University PCs. It appears that the interest in the start-up of the NFL was even more interesting to fans than the race for MLB division titles and World Series candidates.

Unique visitors to the Internet Sports site category grew by 6.6 percent (37.2 million to 39.6 million) from August to September as fans made their online presence felt.

While one might expect that the final stretch of the baseball season would generate more interest in September than the first few weeks of the NFL season, site traffic - suggest that the opposite is true. The anticipation of the kickoff of the NFL season seemed to outweigh the interest in the close of the baseball season. This is consistent with reports of disappointing television viewing of the Series.

Unique Visitors U.S.Home/Work/University (2002)

	Aug	Sep	% Change Sep vs. Aug
Sports Category	37,148,428	39,587,836	6.6%
nfl.com	6,813,176	9,528,113	39.8%
mlb.com	3,809,604	3,330,688	-12.6%

Late-breaking comScore weekly visitor data for the week ending Oct. 20, indicate that total worldwide visitors to nfl.com were flat at 4.3 million versus the prior three weeks, while traffic to mlb.com dropped 23 percent to 1.2 million visitors.

In September 2002, males comprised nearly 70 percent of visitors to both mlb.com and nfl.com, making these two audiences' composition of men 35 percent greater than the total Internet population. mlb.com had its highest concentration of visitors among the male age 18-24 group (17 percent of total site visitors), making the site more than three times as likely to attract this demographic than the Total Internet. Conversely, nfl.com's highest concentration of visitors fell into the older male 35-44 year-old range (19 percent or total site visitors), making the site 50 percent more likely to attract this group versus the total Internet.

mlb.com attracted a slightly older female set; its highest concentration of women (representing 11 percent of total site visitors) was in the 35-44 age group, roughly equivalent to the make-up of the overall Internet. Conversely, nfl.com's highest concentration (9 percent) of women was in the 25-34 year-old range, lagging the Internet by one percent.

An analysis of the online buying power of audiences visiting mlb.com and nfl.com reveals that visitors to both sites spend significantly more dollars online than the average Web user. In September 2002, mlb.com visitors registered a BPI of 190 - indicating that they spend nearly twice as much as the average Web user. Visitors to nfl.com follow closely, posting a BPI of 185. Visitors to these two sites also outspent the typical sports sites visitor (159 BPI).

For more information: comScore MEDIA METRIX, a division of comScore Networks