July 16th, 2009

Fox and Fanhouse Take Hits in June comScore Report

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

TheBigLead.com has the comScore traffic numbers for sports sites in June and reports that Fox Sports and Fanhouse experienced bigger drops than others among the top 10.

Per TBL, Fox — which did still rank third in June behind Yahoo! and ESPN — dropped to 12.57 million unique visitors from 15.1 million in June 2008 and 13.67 million in May 2009.

Fanhouse dipped from fifth in May to sixth in June, going from 9.7 million uniques down to 8.44 million. TBL points out that the site drew 11.01 million unique visitors last December before announcing the additions of prominent sportswriters including Jay Mariotti and Kevin Blackistone to the blogger staff.

Fanhouse also shed the “AOL Sports” flag back in January and relaunched as the company’s primary sports entity. Judging by 2008 numbers, the recent acquisition of MMAFighting.com and the run-up to football season on AOL’s fantasy games site, FleaFlicker.com, could add a couple hundred thousand uniques a month through late summer and fall.

Fox Sports, as well, is likely looking for its recent deal with OPENSports.com to enhance its fantasy products and boost site traffic.

Here’s the June comScore Top 10 in full (numbers include subsidiary sites):

1. Yahoo! Sports — 24.77 million unique visitors (27.14 million in May)

2. ESPN — 20.98 million (20.51 million)

3. Fox Sports — 12.57 million (14.62 million)

4. MLB.com — 11.54 million (12.42 million)

5. Fantasy Sports Ventures — 8.51 million (8.74 million)

6. Fanhouse — 8.44 million (9.7 million)

7. CBS Sports — 6.64 million (7.17 million)

8. NBA.com — 6.24 million (8.25 million)

9. NFL.com — 6.03 million (6.33 million)

10. Sports Illustrated sites — 4.44 million (4.5 million)

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