Premiership Football Clubs Draw Online Interest from Around the World, According to Comscore

Manutd.com Ranks as Most Popular Premiership Club Site

Premierleague.com Derives 55 Percent of its Online Audience from Outside the U.K.

LONDON, U.K., July 23, 2008 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of a study on visitation to the official Web sites of Premiership football clubs, based on data from the Comscore World Metrix audience measurement service. The study revealed that the majority of traffic to the Web sites of the “Big Four” Premiership clubs – Manchester, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea – now originates from outside of the U.K.

Premiership Champions Manchester United Also Reign Online in U.K.

Premierleague.com, the official site of the FA Barclays Premier League, attracted an average of 1.2 million U.K. visitors per month during the 2007/08 season (August 2007 – May 2008). The website of Premiership Champions Manchester United, Manutd.com, ranked as the most popular club site with an average of 912,000 visitors per month. Liverpoolfc.tv ranked second with 887,000 visitors, followed by Arsenal.com (718,000 visitors), and Chelseafc.com (402,000 visitors).

*Excludes traffic to club pages served under the PremiumTV network.

**Excludes searches from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Asia-Pacific Region Provides Fruitful Fan base for “Big Four” Clubs

Premierleague.com attracted 55 percent of its total audience from outside the U.K., demonstrating the broad global interest in the league. With the exception of Liverpoolfc.tv, all of the “Big Four” club sites drew the majority of their visitors from outside the U.K., with Manutd.com generating the largest share of its audience from abroad (64 percent).

*Excludes searches from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

In the case of the “Big Four” sites, as well as Premierleague.com, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for the largest share of total traffic outside Europe. The region’s share of visitors ranged from 21 percent for Liverpoolfc.tv to 30 percent for Manutd.com, in each case representing a greater share than any other region outside of Europe.

“These data suggest that there is a substantial market for Premiership football beyond the confines of the U.K.,” said Comscore analyst Jamie Gavin. “It therefore makes sense that the Football Association would be considering staging an additional ten games per season overseas to help raise the profile of the other clubs. Generating additional exposure of these teams across other continents will help establish the Premiership as a sports league with a truly global fan base.”

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Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate

Ayaan Mohamud
Comscore, Inc.
+ 44 (0) 207-099-1775
worldpress@comscore.com