The digital sports media category in September predictably surged with the return of football season and fantasy football, with the category posting its largest overall audience in any month since the Pyeongchang Games in February and the highest consumption all year. Monthly comScore rankings of multiplatform digital reach and engagement showed the sports category last month posted a total audience of 187.2 million, up from 178.3 million in August and 186.6 million in September ’17. However, last month’s consumption average of 152.3 million minutes per user represented double-digit percentage increases over the 101.7 million minutes per user in August and 130.5 minutes per user in September ’17, with the latest surge no doubt fueled in part by continued growth in season-long fantasy football. ESPN again led the category with a reach total of 87.2 million unique users and an average audience consumption of 104.1 minutes per user. The flagship ESPN mobile app posted its best-ever month in September with 20 million unique users and 2.1 billion total minutes of consumption. The ESPN fantasy mobile app posted even higher consumption with 2.3 billion minutes and a distinct audience of 9.8 million uniques.
A UNIQUE NEW ENTRANT: The sports section of Fox News made its first ever appearance in comScore’s sports audience rankings, coming in at 15th with 8 million uniques. Officials at comScore are still studying the issue, but the traffic surge there is thought to be driven partially by coverage of Nike’s new marketing campaign with Colin Kaepernick. The Fox Sports-Perform Media rollup that normally appears in this list ranked 10th in September.
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RANK
|
SITE
|
UNIQUES (000)
|
|
1
|
ESPN
|
87,215
|
|
2
|
CBS Sports*
|
71,848
|
|
3
|
Yahoo Sports-NBC Sports Network**
|
63,887
|
|
4
|
NFL Internet Group
|
55,564
|
|
5
|
USA Today Sports Media Group***
|
51,362
|
|
6
|
Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network^
|
46,069
|
|
7
|
SB Nation
|
41,335
|
|
8
|
Sports Illustrated sites
|
29,078
|
|
9
|
MLB
|
28,681
|
|
10
|
Fox Sports-Perform Media^^
|
27,309
|
|
11
|
Minute Media#
|
19,909
|
|
12
|
MSN Sports
|
17,526
|
|
13
|
Deadspin.com
|
11,807
|
|
14
|
Fubo.TV
|
11,255
|
|
15
|
Fox News Sports
|
8,016
|
|
RANK
|
SITE
|
TOTAL TIME SPENT (MINUTES)
|
|
1
|
ESPN
|
9.08 billion
|
|
2
|
Yahoo Sports-NBC Sports Network**
|
6.21 billion
|
|
3
|
MLB
|
2.42 billion
|
|
4
|
NFL Internet Group
|
2.23 billion
|
|
5
|
CBS Sports*
|
1.84 billion
|
|
6
|
Bleacher Report-Turner Sports Network^
|
1.07 billion
|
|
7
|
USA Today Sports Media Group***
|
578 million
|
|
8
|
Fox Sports-Perform Media^^
|
401 million
|
|
9
|
SB Nation
|
369 million
|
|
10
|
Sports Illustrated sites
|
184 million
|
NOTES: * = Includes 247Sports.com, MaxPreps and Scout Media. ** = Includes Rivals, Rotoworld and FanDuel. *** = Includes 81 local Gannett-owned newspaper sites, 23 Gannett-owned broadcast TV sites, USA Today High School Sports, The Big Lead and For The Win. ^ = Includes NBA.com, NCAA.com and WNBA.com. ^^ = Includes The Sporting News. # = Includes 90min, 12Up, DBLTap and The Spun.
