One of the more common complaints that NHL fans have made since the lockout has concerned the continued bashing the sport has been suffering at the hands of the MSM when it comes to television ratings.
That's not exactly a shock, because it's something of an easy storyline to sell to and editor and explain to an audience. But I just came across a piece of data that I hope gets wider play.
This morning, Sports Business Daily ran a Web traffic ranking survey of the top sports Web sites (subscription required). While the top finishers weren't terribly surprising -- ESPN and the usual suspects -- something further down the list caught my eye:
Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or is NHL.com just behind NBA.com in terms of popularity? Remember, these are Web stats, so you can't factor out our friends to the North the way you do with television ratings.
Now I'm sure there may be a valid explanation here. After all, the NHL starts its season earlier than the NBA, so season traffic might just surge a little earlier for the NHL. Still, with the way folks talk, you'd think the league ought to be dead and buried.
And here's something else I'm seeing: According to that footnote at the end, the Turner number at about 3.8 million per month is the aggregation of PGATour.com, PGA.com and NASCAR.com. I wonder how the NHL would fare against any of those sites if they were broken out individually.
And don't think I didn't notice the WWE right behind the NHL. Another question that comes to mind -- why no numbers for UFC.com?
Interesting chart. I have to wonder how much of a percentage fantasy sports drives traffic to ESPN and Yahoo. And also to be noted, a Yahoo executive recently stressed that a focus on more local-themed content would boost the bottom line. I have also seen a lot of national CBS content integrated on a number of regional CBS affiliate websites, that has to help.
The UFC may have a large number of the top MMA fighters, and some of the bigger pay-per-view events, but online I would put sherdog.com and proelite.com as two of the top websites for MMA content and traffic.
On a semi-related note. I am on my way to the weigh-ins for the Strikeforce card that will be held tomorrow night at HP Pavilion. It will host the first MMA 4-man tournament ever held in California, but open tournaments have been a part of MMA since the beginning. Yahoo will stream the Strikeforce card for free online, for any computer outside of the Bay Area market:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma