ESPN Again Leads ComScore Sports Site Traffic In April, While WWE Cracks Top 15

WWE in April made its first entry into the top 15 of monthly comScore rankings of the most-trafficked U.S. sports sites since the arrival of the measurement agency's multiplatform rankings early last year. Its entry arrives after the debut earlier this year of the WWE Network, its over-the-top digital network. WWE last month announced the OTT network had 667,287 subscribers after six weeks of operation, a total more than half its stated goal of 1 million subscribers by year's end, but still a contributor to a sharp drop in its stock price. But the property's sharply rising digital profile fueled a 41% increase in unique visitors from April ‘13. ESPN, meanwhile, retained the top spot in the April comScore list with a total of 66.1 million unique visitors, its seventh month out of the last eight leading the list. ESPN also led consumption metrics, as is custom, with an average of 81.2 minutes per user during the month. Among individual site metrics within these rollup rankings, Bleacher Report for the first time surpassed Yahoo Sports in traffic, and now ranks as the second-most-visited sports site behind ESPN. Bleacher Report by itself generated 35.6 million unique visitors during the month, up 64% from the same month a year ago. Fueled by the recent NFL Draft, Bleacher Report's traffic of nearly 90 million page views on May 9 was a one-day record for the site.