March Madness Draws Millions to the Web for Scores, Coverage, and Live Broadcasts of NCAA Tournament

Live Streaming on Initial Tourney Days Draws Strong Interest

RESTON, VA, March 20, 2006 – Comscore MMX today released an analysis of visitation to college basketball related Web sites during the first round of the NCAA tournament. Thursday, March 16 and Friday, March 17 marked the opening round of games, a time when online activity traditionally peaks as fans look to stay abreast of the games during the workday.

Fans Inundate Sports Sites for NCAA Related Content

As in past years, millions of fans logged onto sports sites during the first stanza of the tournament to check scores, standings and, for the first-time ever, to view live streaming broadcasts of all games, which are being offered free of charge on NCAASports.com, in conjunction with CBS Sports.

On Thursday, nearly 8 million visitors accessed NCAA Men’s College Basketball content at the leading sports sites*, representing 7.2 percent of all U.S. Internet users on Thursday and 6.3 percent on Friday. Work locations contributed 4.5 million of these visitors, which means that 8.4 percent of all U.S. Internet users at work viewed NCAA content. Friday unfolded in a similar fashion, with a higher percentage of the work users than the general online population accessing NCAA content (7.3 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively). The total numbers of visitors to NCAA content declined slightly from Thursday (8.0 million) to Friday (7.0 million), while approximately 600,000 fewer visitors accessed NCAA content from work locations (4.5 million on Thursday and 3.9 million on Friday).

In total, 8.1 million visitors accessed Men’s College Basketball related content from work over the course of the first two days, but only 300,000 visitors accessed the content on both days. This lack of overlap in visitation from Thursday to Friday suggests that a substantial majority of online fans have, as their main interest in the tournament, a focus on their favorite team. However, with 8.1 million unique visitors accessing NCAA content on the first two days of the tourney, that number is 35 percent higher than the number of visitors to the entire Sports category on an average day (approximately 6.2 million), clearly showing fans’ strong interest in following the tournament.

* Based on leading sports sites: NCAASports.com, ESPN, CBS Sportsline, Yahoo! Sports, AOL Sports, Fox Sports on MSN

“College basketball fans were abuzz at the prospect of watching live broadcasts of NCAA tournament games during the workday, and they were not shy about tuning in as the first round games kicked into action,” said Andrew Lipsman, Senior Analyst at Comscore Networks. “The ability to watch all games online without charge fueled additional interest among fans at work. On Thursday, 57 percent of those who accessed NCAA content did so from work locations; on Friday 55 percent visitors to NCAA content connected from work computers.”

Streamers and Wannabe Streamers

NCAASports.com announced that they offered up enough bandwidth to support 200,000 simultaneous streamers for the live game broadcasts, while those who exceeded capacity were sent to a virtual waiting room before they were able to view the live games. Most participants incurred relatively brief wait times before being granted access to the full buffet of games.

Interest in the online broadcasts started off with a bang on Thursday, March 16, as 700,000 visitors accessed NCAASports.com’s live video, with 510,000 (73 percent) being at work. After the initial firestorm of activity, visitation declined only slightly on Friday, with 552,000 visitors accessing the streaming broadcasts. Again, 73 percent of the streams (401,000) were to work locations. For both Total U.S. and Work Locations, the number of streamed-to visitors fell by 21 percent from Thursday to Friday.

About Comscore MMX

Comscore MMX, a division of Comscore Networks, provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report – with unmatched accuracy – details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. Comscore MMX continues the tradition of quality and innovation established by its MMX syndicated Internet ratings – long recognized as the currency in online media measurement among financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers – while drawing upon Comscore's advanced technologies to address important new industry requirements. All Comscore MMX syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About Comscore Networks

Comscore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior and attitudes. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given Comscore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. Comscore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, Comscore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. Comscore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. Comscore services are used by global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Orbitz. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

Press
Bill Daddi
Daddi Brand Communications
646-370-1341
press@comscore.com