ESPN in January fell to third among U.S. sports sites in the monthly comScore reach rankings for the first time since August. Yahoo Sports ended a five-month, back-and-forth battle with ESPN for the top overall spot, leading the list for the second straight month with a total of 41.24 million unique visitors. The January list does not include the digital content and marketing partnership between Yahoo and NBC Sports that will ultimately create a joint listing in comScore rankings. Fox Sports, ranking second with a total of 39.44 million unique visitors, branded its January total as its best non-event driven month ever, and its second-best of any month behind the London Olympics-fueled total of 44.98 million uniques posted in August. Deadspin.com, meanwhile, entered the chart at No. 14 with 5.18 million uniques, its total boosted significantly by breaking the Manti Te'o fake girlfriend story. ESPN again led in consumption among U.S. sports sites in January with an average of 72.9 minutes per visitor during the month.
|
RANK
|
SITE |
UNIQUES (000)
|
|
1
|
Yahoo Sports* |
41,244
|
|
2
|
FoxSports.com on MSN |
39,438
|
|
3
|
ESPN |
38,145
|
|
4
|
USA Today Sports Media Group** |
23,510
|
|
5
|
Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network*** |
21,533
|
|
6
|
NFL Internet Group |
21,182
|
|
7
|
CBS Sports |
18,849
|
|
8
|
NBC Sports^ |
15,431
|
|
9
|
SB Nation |
11,710
|
|
10
|
Sports Illustrated Sites |
11,059
|
|
11
|
Sporting News on AOL |
10,641
|
|
12
|
MLB |
7,069
|
|
13
|
Active.com sites |
6,433
|
|
14
|
Deadspin.com |
5,180
|
|
15
|
Stack Media |
4,432
|
| |
|
|
NOTES: All numbers do not include wireless traffic. * = includes Rivals.com and ThePostGame.com. ** = Includes 81 local Gannett newspaper sites, 23 Gannett-owned broadcast TV station sites, USA Today High School Sports, BNQT Media Group. *** = Sites include NBA.com, PGA.com, NCAA.com and WNBA.com. ^ = Includes NHL.com.
