Top Three Sports Sites Remain Same In July Comscore Numbers; MLB.com Makes Jump

The July '11 rankings for the most-trafficked sports sites according to comScore shows little change at the top relative to recent months with Yahoo Sports again at No. 1, ESPN.com at No. 2 and FoxSports.com at No. 3. But MLB.com, in the sixth spot, saw its number of unique visitors balloon from 12.1 million in July '10 and less than 10 million in many other recent months to 17.4 million last month as a result of new beaconing technology developed by comScore. The technology essentially places a tag on each page on a particular publisher's site, allowing for easier tracking by the measurement agency to buttress other methodologies such as human panels. MLB.com first began active work with comScore on the beaconing back in the early spring, and the technology is used by all the other major sports sites. The recalibration for MLB.com, however, was particularly dramatic as its heavy amounts of game-driven daytime traffic had been greatly underrepresented by comScore panels that typically operate at night. MLBAM, which has been a frequent and vocal critic of third-party measurement data, sells advertising based on actual server data like most other sites, and it says those numbers remain higher than those published by comScore. But MLBAM execs credited comScore's efforts to publish better numbers, and said the new data will aid in gaining more business from ad buyers who use the third-party metrics. "ComScore has been focused on getting to the truth more than simply protecting their business model," said MLBAM President & CEO Bob Bowman. "It's definitely more accurate now, and it is helpful as it relates to our ad business, perhaps for the postseason, and certainly for next year."  

NOTE: * = Includes NBA.com, SI.com, NASCAR.com, PGATour.com, PGA.com, NCAA.com and WNBA.com