HITWISE UK SPORTS UPDATE

UK Internet searches for ‘rugby’ overtake ‘football’ for the first time in two years amidst World Cup fever

London, 15th October Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today reveals that for the week ending 13^th  October there were more UK Internet searches for the term ‘rugby’ than the term ‘football’ for the first time in two years, following the England rugby team’s semi-final victory over France this weekend.

Six-fold increase in searches for ‘rugby’ as a result of World Cup

There has been a six-fold increase in the number of UK Internet searches for 'rugby' since the World Cup started at the beginning of September and for the week ending 13th October, there were 10% more searches for 'rugby' than 'football'. The offiicial Rugby World Cup homepage (www.rugbyworldcup.com) received 44% of all traffic from the term 'rugby' last week, while the Planet Rugby Portal (www.planet-rugby.com), was the second most popular site. The website, which has seen its market share of all UK visits increase by 165% since the start of September, received 11% of all visits from the search term 'rugby'.

Jonny Wilkinson is the most popular England player online, and last week there was a 250% increase in searches for the star kicker. 27% of UK Internet users searching for ‘jonny Wilkinson’ went to Wikipedia, but the second most popular recipient of traffic from the term was Women Republic (www.womenrepublic.co.uk). Robin Goad, Research Director of Hitwise UK commented: “Wilkinson’s appeal with female fans is clear: the proportion of female visitors to Rugby sites has increased from 41% before the world cup to 44% during the last 4 weeks, while the terms ‘jonny wilkinson pictures’, ‘jonny wilkinson topless’ and ‘jonny wilkinson girlfriend’ all appear in the top 10 searches containing the words ‘jonny wilkinson’. 

Football remains number one, despite the searches

Despite the massive growth in searches for ‘rugby’ as a result of the World Cup, overall football remains the more popular sport in the UK. “Last week there were over 8 times as many UK Internet visits to Football sites compared with Rugby sites, despite the World Cup boost” commented Goad. “The loyalty of football fans at the club level ensures it remains the most popular sport in the UK. Three of the top 5 football sites in the UK are club homepages, while the Rugby category is skewed in favour of international sites, which are more prone to fluctuations based on seasonal factors and the success of the UK national teams”.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

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Jannie Cahill

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