Melbourne, Nov. 29, 2005 — The Socceroos defeat of Uruguay on November 16 and qualification for entry into the FIFA World Cup has sparked renewed interest amongst Australian Internet users on the event to be held in Germany next year. According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, variations on the search term ‘world cup’ were at the highest point for the year at week ending November 19, 2005, accounting for 1.9% of all searches to the Sports – Soccer category.

The win marks the first time since 1974 Australia has qualified for the World Cup, and caps the growing popularity of the sport in Australia as demonstrated online: The number of websites in the Sports - Soccer category has grown by 62% over the past year from 311 to 504. There has also been a tremendous growth in visits to local football websites by 65.5% between January and November 2005. This includes the significant number of ‘grass roots’ websites of regional and local football associations across the country. Examples include Sydney FC (www.sydneyfc.com) and Melbourne Victoria F.C. (www.mvfc.com.au).

Online travel research to Germany is likely to increase in the lead-up to the event, as soccer fans are already specifying ‘germany’ in their searches. Variations included, ‘germany 2006’, ‘world cup germany’ and ‘world cup 2006 germany’. Travel vendors however are yet to benefit from these terms.

ESPN Soccernet (www.soccernet.com) held the dominant market share with 20.1% in the Sports – Soccer category for the week ending November 19, 2005. SBS – The World Cup (www.theworldgame.com.au) and Football Federation Australia (www.footballaustralia.com.au) vied for the top local soccer website, with respective visitation shares of 13.7% and 7%.

Sports – Soccer websites continue to draw a pre-dominantly male audience, with a majority of 79.6%. Close to a third of users were concentrated in the 35-44 age-group. Soccer websites sent a significant amount of industry traffic in October 2005 to the Business and Finance (12.5%), Shopping & Classifieds (3.9%) and Computers & Internet – Software (2.4%) categories.