Daily users are up 10 million compared to February 2014; 33 percent share of sports category is more than Nos. 2, 3 and 4 properties combined; Nearly one third of ESPN’s unique users exclusively access content on smartphones and tablets.
ESPN Digital Media reached 74.7 million unique visitors in the U.S. in February, up 32 percent from a year ago. This marked the ninth-largest monthly total in sports category history, topping ESPN’s total in September 2013, a category record at that time, by over 2 million. ESPN’s June 2014 through February 2015 now comprise the top nine monthly unique visitor totals in sports category history.
Although February is historically among the lowest-trafficked months in the sports category each year, ESPN reached 18.5 million U.S. people daily across devices, up from 9.6 million a year ago, and more than the Nos. 2 and 3 sports properties combined (Yahoo Sports-NBC Sports Network at 9.7 million, Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network at 7.9 million). 25 percent of ESPN’s total monthly users visited the property on a daily basis, a higher daily return rate than all but one of the fifteen top sports category properties.
On mobile devices alone, 57.3 million unique users accessed ESPN web and app content, up from 37.8 million a year ago. ESPN mobile visitors generated 3.2 billion minutes of usage, more than the next five mobile sports properties combined.
62 percent of ESPN’s unique users – 46.3 million people – exclusively accessed content on smartphones and tablets. This is the 11th consecutive month that more than half of ESPN’s digital users came only from mobile devices.
Fans spent 5.6 billion minutes using ESPN digital properties, a sports category record for the month of February, and up 34 percent from a year ago. Overall, ESPN accounted for 33.2 percent of all sports category usage on digital platforms, more than the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 properties combined (Yahoo! Sports-NBC Sports Network had 13.1 percent, Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network, 9.5 percent, and Fox Sports Digital-Sporting News Media, 9.4 percent).
More results from the February comScore Multi-Platform report:
- ESPN reached 3.5 million millennial male unique visitors (males aged 18-34) in the average day, ranking 14th among the nearly 18,000 U.S. digital properties reported by comScore.
- 58 percent of all time spent with ESPN digital content was consumed by mobile device users, the 10th consecutive month that smartphones and tablets contributed a larger share of usage to ESPN’s digital total than desktop and laptop computers.
- 1 million people used ESPN.com across devices, up 27 percent from a year ago, with 38.7 million people visiting ESPN.com via smartphones and tablets.
- ESPN accounted for two of the top three sports apps on smartphones and tablets in February. The ESPN app topped the category for unique visitors (13.0 million), accompanied by No. 3 WatchESPN (5.6 million).
- ESPN’s portfolio of apps generated 2.0 billion minutes of usage, more than the next five properties combined, and accounted for 47 percent of all time spent with apps in the sports category.
Additional results from ESPN Research & Analytics:
- 3 million unique devices streamed WatchESPN and ESPN3 content in February (up 27 percent from a year ago), as viewers spent 729 million minutes with programming across all platforms (up 52 percent).1
- ESPN3 was the second most-streamed network on the WatchESPN platform (trailing only ESPN) with 164 million minutes of viewing.1
- Fans watched 376.9 million ESPN digital video clips in February across all touch points, up 19 percent from a year ago.1
- 70 percent of all ESPN platform clips (329.1 million) were viewed on computers, 24 percent on phones and tablets, and 5 percent on connected TVs.1
- ESPN networks and ABC sports television content generated 7.5 million tweets in February, accounting for 8 percent of all TV-related activity during the month.2
Other key social media metrics:
- 9 million unique authors wrote tweets about ESPN/ABC Sports content, representing 20 percent of those tweeting about TV in February.2
- ESPN’s top Twitter accounts were retweeted or favorited 12.0 million times. ESPN’s Twitter accounts have 47 million unique followers.3
- November ended with the ESPN Facebook page counting 13.9 million fans, while the SportsCenter page totaled 11.6 million fans. ESPN maintains 10 pages that each have more than 2 million fans.4
1 Source: Adobe Analytics
2 Source: Nielsen SocialGuide
3 Source: Twitter
4 Source: Facebook
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