Advanced Television

ESPN Goals scores 1m UK downloads

October 18, 2011

By Colin Mann

ESPN Goals, the free mobile app which brings UK fans action and goals from every Barclays Premier League football match within just minutes of it taking place, notched up its one millionth UK download over the weekend of October 15-16. The app has also been deeply engaging, with fans registering more than 50 million page views in just two months, and logging more than 61.3 million minutes of time on the app. The milestones follow its launch as a free app at the start of the season, featuring a new interface and new goal video alerts.

Between August 8th and September 8th, ESPN Goals was the most downloaded free sports app on iPhones in the UK (and the 10th most downloaded app across all genres in the UK) and the second most downloaded free sports app on Android, according to Xyologic mobile analysis .

ESPN Goals, along with the ESPN television channel and ESPN.co.uk, is part of the broadcsaster’s cross-platform coverage of football in the UK that aims to connect fans to the game across the screens that they use each day. The combination has helped grow audiences for each, ESPN’s TV football coverage is driving downloads on mobile devices and traffic on ESPN.co.uk has now exceeded 1.1 million unique visitors per month. At the same time, the ESPN Goals app is serving as one of the top referral engines for subscription to the ESPN channel in the UK.

According to Tom Gleeson, vice president, digital media, ESPN International, ESPN Goals has established a popular brand and built a broad user-base with fans by demonstrating its ability to connect fans with Premier League football on the move. “The app reflects our approach to bring fans multi-screen access to football, which is something we will continue to enhance as our business grows in the UK,” he stated.

ESPN also revealed it has reached a round of new advertising agreements for the app with three leading consumer brands – Electronic Arts (EA), Continental Tyres and Mentholatum. Each will run short pre-roll video ads around video clips in the app. Each two- to three-and-a-half-minute video clip will feature a single, short pre-roll. EA will also run display advertising in the app as well as on ESPN’s websites ESPNsoccernet and ESPN.co.uk.

Alan Fagan, group director, advertising & sponsorship sales, EMEA, ESPN, said the deals demonstrated the unique appeal of ESPN Goals to a wide range of leading brands.

ESPN Goals is available at no cost to football fans via Apple iTunes, Android Market, Nokia’s OVI Store, the Blackberry App World, and Windows Phone Marketplace – expanding to two new platforms in its second season, covering the entire range of major smartphone platforms.

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