March Madness Pumps Multiscreen Web Traffic

comScore released the results of a study of web usage related to the 2012 NCAA Tournament based on data from comScore Device Essentials. The study, which analyzed browser-based (i.e., non-app) page views to the sports content category, indicates that consumers dramatically increased their access of sports content across all three primary screens for web access -- computer, tablet and smartphone -- as they tried to stay plugged into the first 32 games of the tournament in real-time.As part of the study, comScore analyzed computer vs. non-computer traffic (predominantly smartphones and tablets) for the Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament compared to the average of the three previous Thursdays and Fridays. The data indicate that nearly double the percentage of sports category content was consumed on non-computer devices as other content categories. For all time periods studied, the percentage of sports category traffic coming from non-computer devices was approximately 20%, while other categories had approximately 10% of traffic coming from these devices. Friday, March 16, the second day of tournament action, saw non-computer sports category traffic peak at 22.1%.