ESPN Digital Media in October: 89 Million Unique Users, 50 Million Exclusively on Mobile

Kevin Ota

November 20, 2014

35 percent share of sports category is more than Nos. 2 and 3 properties combined;
400+ million video views for sixth consecutive month;
Fourth time in five months with more than 1 billion minutes of streaming on WatchESPN;
ESPN now owns the top 5 all-time months for total unique visitors in sports category history

As ESPN Fantasy Football and coverage of the NFL, MLB playoffs, and College Football continued through October, ESPN Digital Media reached 89.1 million unique visitors in the U.S. for the month, up 32 percent from a year ago. This established a new record for October and marked the second largest monthly total in sports category history, behind only ESPN’s record-setting 94.0 million in September. ESPN’s June, July, August, September, and October now comprise the top five monthly unique visitor totals in sports category history.

On mobile devices alone, 66.6 million unique users accessed ESPN web and app content, up from 43.8 million a year ago. 56 percent of ESPN’s unique users – 49.9 million people – exclusively accessed content on smartphones and tablets. This is the seventh consecutive month that more than half of ESPN’s digital users came only from mobile devices.

Fans spent 9.4 billion minutes using ESPN digital properties, up 15 percent from a year ago. Overall, ESPN accounted for 34.8 percent of all sports category usage on digital platforms, more than the Nos. 2 and 3 properties combined (Yahoo! Sports-NBC Sports Network had 15.5 percent, Fox Sports Digital-Sporting News Media 10.3 percent.)

More results from the October comScore Multi-Platform report:

In the average minute throughout October, 210,302 people used ESPN digital properties on computers, smartphones and tablets. ESPN’s average minute audience among Males 18-49 (150,445) was larger than the TV viewership of Fox Sports 1 (76,764) and NBC Sports Network (26,871) combined.¹

An average of 25.0 million people in the U.S. accessed ESPN content across devices on a daily basis in October, up from 16.6 million a year ago.

66.9 million people used ESPN.com across devices, up 19 percent from a year ago, with 45.7 million people visiting ESPN.com via smartphones and tablets.

October was the 14th consecutive month in which more unique people visited ESPN on smartphones and tablets than on desktop and laptop computers (39.2 million uniques). 75 percent of ESPN’s total users accessed content on mobile devices, which generated 5.8 billion minutes of usage.

61 percent of all time spent with ESPN digital content was consumed by mobile device users, the sixth consecutive month (and ninth time in the past 12 months) that smartphones and tablets contributed a larger share of usage to ESPN’s digital total than desktop and laptop computers.

ESPN accounted for three of the top four sports apps on smartphones and tablets in October. ESPN’s SportsCenter app topped the category for unique visitors (15.2 million, a new record for sports app reach), accompanied by No. 3 ESPN Fantasy Football (7.8 million) and No. 4 WatchESPN (6.9 million). In terms of total minutes the ESPN Fantasy Football app led the category with 1.4 billion minutes of usage, followed by the ESPN SportsCenter app (891 million) at No. 2, and the ESPN Radio app (538 million) at No. 4. ESPN’s portfolio of apps generated 3.6 billion minutes of usage, more than any other sports property.

Additional results from ESPN Research & Analytics:

4 million unique devices streamed WatchESPN and ESPN3 content in October (up 54 percent from a year ago), as viewers spent 1.1 billion minutes with programming across all platforms (up 97 percent). October marked the fourth time in the past five months in which WatchESPN surpassed one billion minutes of streaming. ESPN3 was the second most-streamed network on the WatchESPN platform (trailing only ESPN) racking up 283.1 million minutes of viewing (up 24 percent year-over-year.)²

Fans watched 456.7 million ESPN digital video clips in October across all touch points, the second-highest monthly total ever and up 14 percent from a year ago. October marked the sixth straight month ESPN saw more than 400 million clips viewed. 126.9 million video clip views came from mobile phones, a new record. 66 percent of all ESPN platform clips were viewed on computers, 28 percent on phones and tablets, and 6 percent on connected TVs.²

ESPN networks and ABC sports television content generated 16.5 million tweets in October, accounting for 21 percent of all TV-related activity during the month. ESPN itself was the second most-social TV network (broadcast or cable), with 2.1 million unique authors sending 9.2 million tweets about ESPN programming.³ Other key social media metrics:

ESPN’s top Twitter accounts were retweeted or favorited 12.2 million times.⁵

October ended with the ESPN Facebook page counting 13.2 million fans, while the SportsCenter page totaled 11.1 million fans. ESPN maintains 10 pages that each have more than 2 million fans.⁴