• by June 23, 2006

So the NBA Finals are over, but the FIFA World Cup continues...

Enthusiasm for the World Cup has spilled over from TV to the Web, naturally--and comScore Networks reports that Monday, June 12 proved to be the strongest day yet for the official FIFA World Cup site, hosted by Yahoo at fifaworldcup.yahoo.com.

The site registered more than 226 million page views, which were viewed by more than 5 million unique visitors.

However, the peak day for video streaming on the official World Cup site was Thursday, June 15, with more than 610,000 streams delivered. This compares to 425,000 video streams on June 12, and 400,000 video streams on the opening day of the tournament. On average during the second week, 169 million pages were viewed by 4.2 million worldwide visitors, and 523,000 videos were streamed each day at the Yahoo FIFA World Cup site.

"Compared to other global events, like the Live 8 concert held in July 2005, which generated only 90 million page views over the two days it ran, these figures demonstrate the tremendous appeal of the World Cup to a global audience," said Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe, in a statement. "This activity underscores the ability of the Web to create a global community focused on a shared interest."

U.S. Internet users showed increased interest in the tournament during its second week, with 111 million pages served to the U.S. audience on Monday and an average of 66 million pages per day served during the course of the week--up from an average of only 32 million pages during the opening weekend. Not surprisingly, given the time differences between Germany where the tournament is being held and the U.S., activity from the U.S. workplace was significant, contributing more than 80 percent of the U.S.-based page views between Monday and Friday. In the U.K., where many of the games start in the evening, just 32 percent of the page views were generated from the workplace.

ComScore recorded visitors to the official World Cup site from more than 35 countries around the world. Usage from individual countries tended to spike around their national team's games. U.S. activity peaked on Monday when the U.S. team played the Czech Republic; South Korean activity spiked on Tuesday when their team played Togo; Argentinean activity peaked on Friday when their team played Serbia and Montenegro; and Japanese and Brazilian activity peaked on Sunday when both of their national teams were playing.