ESPN.com Sets ComScore Sports Consumption Record In October, Fueled By MLB, Election

ESPN in October set a new comScore sports category record with 11.43 billion minutes of digital content consumption, surpassing its own prior mark of 10.31 billion minutes set in September '15. Its average minutes per user figure of 115.1 also set a new category record. ESPN during the month additionally recorded the third-highest reach total ever for a U.S. sports entity, generating 99.3 million uniques, down slightly from its company record of 104.57 million uniques in September. The robust totals were fueled by multiple factors, including user interest in college and pro football, fantasy football, MLB’s postseason and a rising profile during the run-up to Election Day for analytics site FiveThirtyEight.com, which attracted 14.93 million uniques during October, up from 8.69 million in September. ESPN also continued to see growth from its reworked ESPN Fantasy app, which was consolidated from several separate products over the summer and redesigned. October also was the first month for the newly combined Fox Sports-SI Group-Perform Media entry, which came in third with 68.17 million uniques, very close to an initial stated target of about 70 million uniques. Fox Sports and Sports Illustrated this past summer struck a broad digital content and sales agreement, adding to Fox’ prior shared comScore listing with the Perform-owned Sporting News.

NOTES: * = Includes Rivals.com, The Vertical, ThePostGame.com, Rotoworld and FanDuel. ** = Includes 247 Sports. *** = 81 local Gannett-owned newspaper sites, 23 Gannett-owned broadcast TV sites, USA Today High School Sports, The Big Lead and For The Win. ^ = NBA.com, NCAA.com and WNBA.com. # = 120 Sports, National Football Post and The FanSided Network.