New York, June 09: Web surfers flocked to the official FIFA World Cup Web site the week ending June 2, sending its traffic soaring 420 percent, according to Internet audience measurement service Nielsen//NetRatings. The site (fifaworldcup.yahoo.com), produced and marketed by Yahoo!, attracted more than 527,000 unique visitors, as compared to 101,000 the week before. Visitors to the World Cup site accounted for 22 percent of the total audience traffic to Yahoo! Sports during the past week.
Overall, sports sites drew more than 9.3 million Web surfers this past week.
ESPN took the top spot, drawing 3.3 million Web surfers. Yahoo! Sports attracted nearly 2.1 million visitors, while more than 1.2 million logged on to Sportsline.com. NASCAR.com drew nearly 1.2 million Web surfers during the same week. Majorleaguebaseball.com rounded out the top 5 list attracting more than one million surfers.
"With real-time game updates and live streaming video clips, sports sites will continue to draw a loyal following, especially with major sporting events such as the NBA Finals, World Cup, Wimbledon and French Open happening this summer," said NetRatings senior analyst Jarvis Mak. Bureau Report