ESPN Tops Sports Sites In July Unique Visitors, But MLB.com Leads In Avg. Time Per User

MLB in July led the comScore multiplatform digital rankings for sports with an average time spent per visitor of 65.5 minutes. The figure, beating ESPN’s 59.4 minutes per visitor, is believed to be the first time a single-sport entrant has ever led the category in that measure and the first time it wasn’t topped by a media entity. ESPN did top the rankings in reach measurement for the 29th consecutive month with a total of more than 79 million uniques, and generated 4.69 billion minutes of total consumption. Both figures were down from June, and ESPN’s consumption total was also down from July of last year as much of the category operated in one of the slowest points of the year. The Olympics, the return of fantasy football registration and MLB’s non-waiver trade deadline should all help generate significant shifts during August. The MLB At Bat app in July posted another month of more than 1 billion minutes of consumption with 1.15 billion, remaining as the category’s most popular app, and has now topped 5 billion minutes since the start of the '16 regular season.