Pro Football Talk Sees Record Traffic For NFL Free Agency Start

By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

ProFootballTalk.com Sets Visitors, Page View Records On First Day Of NFL Free Agency

ProFootballTalk.com posted site traffic records last Friday for the first day of NFL free agency, generating 3.8 million page views and 523,000 unique visitors during the day. Previous highs for an individual day on the site were 2.1 million page views and 493,000 unique visitors. At peak levels Friday afternoon, the site was recording more than 88 page views per second. The spikes owe to several factors, including the NFL's uncertain labor situation and ProFootballTalk.com's ongoing relationship with NBC, which last summer struck a deal to host, sell and promote the site and is now replicating the blog model for other major sports. "I didn't know what to expect in terms of traffic [last Friday]. We're definitely in some uncharted waters with the uncapped year," said Mike Florio, ProFootballTalk.com Founder. "But I've tried to stay to two very simple principles: create the kind of destination that I'd want to read and continue to grow audience."