ESPNFC expanding to multiple platforms
December 4, 2012
EAs the European and global football season gathers pace, ESPNFC, the multi-platform global football initiative from ESPN, is unveiling a package of enhancements as it continues to grow audiences and connect brands with fans. Available online, via the mobile web, smart phone apps, and, on TV via football debate and discussion show PressPass, ESPNFC brings together all of ESPN’s global football coverage under a dedicated multimedia brand.
Arne Rees, vice president, ESPN digital media international, said: “ESPNFC is increasing the number of fans and brands who connect with our football coverage worldwide. ESPNFC is one of ESPN’s most significant global commitments to the sport of football and leverages the core strength of what ESPN does well – serve sports fans.”
Worldwide, through the first three months of this season (15 August thru 15 November), ESPNFC has significantly increased ESPN’s connection to football fans and is the fastest growing of the top five football-specific services online, posting 25 per cent growth in online unique users year-on-year in the August – October period. Worldwide, across all digital devices and platforms, ESPNFC’s total visits in the period are 13 per cent higher year-on-year, to more than 210 million. Football fans worldwide are also spending more time with football content via ESPNFC than ever: across all devices and platforms, fans spend almost 1.8 billion minutes on ESPNFC during the first three months of this season.
Online and on mobile, ESPNFC’s worldwide average daily unique users are up by 25 per cent (to nearly 1 million) and 16 per cent (nearly 430,000) respectively against the same period last season. Via ESPNFC’s smart phone apps, worldwide, more than 23 million page views have been logged, with fans spending more than 24 million minutes accessing these apps. Additionally, fans have accessed more than 12 million videos across all digital devices and platforms.
UK-based fans spent 113 million total minutes accessing ESPNFC across all devices and platforms in the period, up 81 per cent year-on-year. Average daily unique users online to ESPNFC are up by almost one-third (32 per cent) while total page views for ESPNFC via the mobile web are up 72 per cent to nearly 20.6 million in the period. The UK is one of the largest markets for ESPNFC applications, registering nearly 2 million pages views so far this season. UK accounts for nearly the same amount of page views as APAC combined.