NEW YORK--(EON:Enhanced Online News)--The 2007 NCAA Tournament officially begins today and basketball fans around the country have been scrambling to fill out their brackets in time. According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, ESPN’s Men’s Tournament Challenge website received the largest percentage of US visits, averaging traffic from Monday and Tuesday of this week, by a small margin over Yahoo! Sports – Tournament Pick’em website and CBS SportsLine.com – Fantasy Mayhem website.
“ncaa brackets increased 38 percent (week ending March 10, 2007 vs. week ending March 11, 2006).”
| Custom Category of March Madness Bracket Websites Ranked by Two-Day Average of Daily Market Share of US Visits and Average Session Time (Two Day Average for March 12-13, 2007) | ||||
| Rank | Name | Domain |
Market |
Average Session Time* |
| 1 | ESPN.com Men's Tournament Challenge | 32.8% | 16:51 | |
| 2 | Yahoo! Sports - Tournament Pick'em | 30.4% | 13:18 | |
| 3 | CBS SportsLine.com - Fantasy Mayhem | 30.0% | 14:58 | |
| 4 | Fox Fantasy- College Bracket Challenge | 6.9% | 7:00 | |
| Note - data is based on custom category of four of the leading NCAA Tournament pool websites ranked by US market share of visits among the four websites. Data comes from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. | ||||
| * - Two day average of daily data from March 12 – 13, 2007 | ||||
| Source: Hitwise | ||||
Session time data indicate that users are spending approximately 15 minutes per visit to fill out brackets on the NCAA tournament pool websites. The average session time for a visit to a site in the Hitwise Sports category for the week ending March 10, 2007 was 7 minutes 41 seconds.
Sports Category Rankings – ESPN Dominates
Tournament pool and college basketball websites were among the most visited websites in the Hitwise Sports category on March 13, 2007. ESPN.com Men's College Basketball ranked at number 4, while its Men's Tournament Challenge page ranked at number 7. ESPN.com held the top spot in the Sports category, with 7.17 percent share on March 13.
| Most Visited Sports Websites Ranked by US Market Share of Visits on 03/13/2007 | ||||
| Rank | Name | Domain | Market Share | |
| 1 | ESPN | 7.17% | ||
| 2 | Yahoo! Sports | 4.17% | ||
| 3 | CBS SportsLine.com | 3.55% | ||
| 4 | ESPN.com - Men's College Basketball | 2.48% | ||
| 5 | Yahoo! Fantasy Sports | 2.23% | ||
| 6 | FOX Sports | 2.02% | ||
| 7 | ESPN.com Men's Tournament Challenge | 1.74% | ||
| 8 | National Football League | 1.73% | ||
| 9 | CBS SportsLine.com - Fantasy Mayhem | 1.71% | ||
| 10 | Yahoo! Sports NBA | 1.65% | ||
| 11 | Yahoo! Sports - Tournament Pick'em | 1.61% | ||
| 58 | Fox Fantasy- College Bracket Challenge | 0.25% | ||
| Source: Hitwise | ||||
Search Term "ncaa brackets" Up 38% Over Last Year
The share of searches on the term “ncaa brackets” increased 604 percent for the week ending March 10, 2007 versus the week ending March 3, 2007. Year over year, searches for "ncaa brackets increased 38 percent (week ending March 10, 2007 vs. week ending March 11, 2006).
About Hitwise
Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service, more information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com. For up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.
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