NCAA Tourney Gives Sports Sites Major March Madness Bounce
Monitoring traffic to three major web properties – ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, and CBS Sports – during the recent NCAA Basketball Tournament shows a spike in activity over last year (Y-O-Y) and the boost in traffic compared to the previous month (M-O-M).
| Unique Audience And % Change | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site | Mar-08 | Feb-09 | Mar-09 | M-O-M | Y-O-Y |
| CBS Sports | 15,106,000 | 10,684,000 | 18,127,000 | 70% | 20% |
| ESPN | 19,844,000 | 17,181,000 | 22,938,000 | 34% | 16% |
| Yahoo! Sports | 19,432,000 | 24,953,000 | 25,515,000 | 2% | 31% |
| Source: Nielsen Online |
Additionally, video streaming on CBS Sports saw massive gains during the tournament, with nearly a 300% gain in unique users watching video. Those viewers racked up more than 380 million minutes of viewing time in March.
| CBS Sports Video Viewing Usage | ||
|---|---|---|
| Statistic | Mar-09 | M-O-M |
| Unique Viewer | 3,274,000 | 287% |
| Total Streams | 38,172,000 | 1214% |
| Time Spent Viewing (min) | 381,882,000 | 4465% |
| Source: Nielsen Online |
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2009/ncaa-tourney-gives-sports-sites-major-march-madness-bounce/
