Fantasy Football Sites Surge in September
Visits to fantasy football sites boomed in September, though both Yahoo and ESPN’s offerings saw year-over-year declines, according to Experian Hitwise.
Fantasy football visits were up 223 percent in September versus August, while overall visits to fantasy sports sites rose 111 percent in September from August.
Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football handled 45.55 percent of visits to fantasy football sites in the U.S. in September, which was 16 percent fewer than the 54.08 percent of visits it handled in September 2009.
ESPN Fantasy Football followed with 34.03 percent, down 3 percent from the 34.97 percent it drew in the same month last year.
NFL.com Fantasy Football had 13.90 percent of the visits to fantasy football sites in September, up 246 percent from the 4.02 percent it had in September 2009.
Yahoo, ESPN and NFL.com’s fantasy football sites hogged 93 percent of visits to the top 10 fantasy football sites in September, according to Hitwise.
The company took a deeper look at the numbers and found that ESPN’s fantasy football sites sat atop the heap in Atlanta, Baltimore and Tampa Bay Designated Market Areas (DMAs) for the four weeks ending Oct. 2.
NFL.com’s fantasy site was the top-ranked fantasy football site in Kansas City and Washington, D.C.
Users between the ages of 25-44 made up 58 percent of the visits to fantasy football websites for the four weeks ending Oct. 2, with visits from users between 18-24 surging 46 percent during that time compared to the same time period last year.
Visits from users with incomes of $100K-$149K rose 4 percent from the same period in 2009.
Results from a survey released late last month from Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that fantasy football wasn’t a significant distraction or productivity-killer at work. The company’s survey of human-resource professionals found that on a scale of 1 (no noticeable impact) to 10, nearly 70 percent of respondents said fantasy football had an impact on productivity of four or lower.
Fewer than 8 percent of respondents noted a distraction level of seven or eight, and none of the respondents noted a distraction level of nine or 10.
Meanwhile, 46.2 percent of respondents said their companies did not take any steps to discourage employees from participating in fantasy football activities at the office, while 24 percent said their companies blocked access to sports and fantasy football sites.
Sources:
http://challengeratworkblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/fantasy-football-not-killing.html
