ESPN has long been known as the Worldwide Leader in sports. Already in 2015, ESPN has continued to flex its muscles with a record-breaking showing on the digital side of things, reeling in 94 million unique visitors in January, an all-time mark. The digital boom has been going on since June 2014, with the last eight registered months bringing in the top eight unique visitor totals in the category’s history, per ESPN.
January had tremendous content for ESPN, including the first-ever college football playoffs, the NFL playoffs and NBA showcase games. The 93.97 million unique visitors in January represented a 52 percent uptick from Jan. 2014.
Over the course of January, 22.2 million Americans were reached on a daily basis, up 9.8 million from a year ago. To understand the scope of that number, it is better than the No.2 (Yahoo/NBC Sports) and No. 3 (Bleacher Report/Turner Sports) properties combined. Sports fans also watched 485.1 million video clips on ESPN in the month, the largest monthly total in the company’s history.
Mobile devices were the main source of digital viewers, bringing in 72.5 million users, increasing over the Jan. 2014 figure by a preposterous 41.3 million. All told, ESPN mobile generated 4.1 billion minutes of usage.
ESPN’s digital numbers only figure to grow. In February, DirecTV users were finally able to use WatchESPN. With the college basketball season now in full swing and WatchESPN offering tons of live events, the user content should continue to spike with viewers looking for some March Madness tips. In January, there were over 1 billion minutes streamed via this app, and over nine million unique devices visited both WatchESPN and ESPN3.
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About Matt Verderame
Matt Verderame, 26, is a New Yorker who went to school at the frozen tundra of SUNY Oswego. After graduating, Verderame has worked for Gannett and SB Nation among other ventures.