ESPN Digital Media Sets Sports Category Record in October

ESPN Digital Media generated 8.2 billion minutes of usage in October — the largest amount of time ever spent on a sports category property in one month — across computers, smartphones and tablets, according to comScore Multi-Platform data. Also, ESPN reached 67.7 million unique visitors, the 2nd highest ever behind ESPN’s record setting total for September. In addition, ESPN accounted for 34% of all sports category usage across digital platforms last month, more than the Nos. 2 and 3 sports properties combined (Yahoo! Sports-NBC Sports Network and NFL Internet Group).

ESPN has remained No. 1 in the sports category for average minute audience, share of category audience, total minutes of usage, total visits, and male unique visitors every month since comScore began releasing Multi-Platform data in September 2012. Other results from the October comScore Multi-Platform report:

• In total, ESPN digital properties attracted 67.7 million unique visitors, logging 8.2 billion minutes of usage and 801.0 million visits.

• 43.8 million people used ESPN mobile properties for 3.9 billion minutes in October, the second consecutive month in which more unique users visited ESPN mobile than ESPN.com (43.3MM). ESPN led the No. 2 mobile sports entity by +115% for unique visitors and received more minutes of usage than the next four mobile properties combined.

• 36% of ESPN’s unique users – 24.4 million people – exclusively accessed content on smartphones and tablets, and 47% of all time spent with ESPN digital content came from fans on mobile devices.

• The 120.6 minutes per user spent with ESPN digital properties (such as ESPN.com, WatchESPN and ScoreCenter) during October was more than any of the top 175 sports category entities.

• In the average minute throughout October, 182,952 people used ESPN digital properties on computers, smartphones and tablets. Among men 18-49 and men 25-54, ESPN was the 8th most-used digital property in the U.S.

Additional results from ESPN Research & Analytics:

• Users watched 346.2 million digital video clips on ESPN platforms in October, the second straight month in which ESPN had a record-high number of monthly starts.  79% of clips were viewed on computers, 14% on mobile devices and 6% on connected TVs.¹

• Viewers spent 575.3 million minutes with WatchESPN and ESPN3 live and on-demand programming across all platforms, up 38% from last October.¹

ESPN networks and ABC sports television content generated 8.8 million tweets in October, 10% of all TV-related activity during the month.  ESPN itself was the 4th most-social TV network, with 1.4 million unique users sending 4.5 million tweets about ESPN content.²  Other key social media metrics:

• ESPN had 24.6 million unique fans across all of its Facebook pages in October, and counted 25.5 million unique followers across all ESPN Twitter accounts.

• 18.6 million people were reached by ESPN page content on Facebook; 16.8 million by SportsCenter page content.³

• 2.2 million people engaged with the ESPN Facebook page (liked a post, shared a story, left a comment), and 2.3 million engaged with the SportsCenter page.³

• ESPN’s Twitter accounts were retweeted or favorited 5.9 million times during the month, the highest monthly amount to-date in 2013.⁴

¹ Source: Adobe Analytics

² Source: SocialGuide

³ Source: Facebook

⁴ Source: Twitter