Monitoring traffic to three major web properties – ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, and CBS Sports – during the recent NCAA Basketball Tournament shows a spike in activity over last year (Y-O-Y) and the boost in traffic compared to the previous month (M-O-M).

Unique Audience  And % Change

Site
Mar-08
Feb-09
Mar-09
M-O-M
Y-O-Y

CBS Sports
15,106,000
10,684,000
18,127,000
70%
20%

ESPN
19,844,000
17,181,000
22,938,000
34%
16%

Yahoo! Sports
19,432,000
24,953,000
25,515,000
2%
31%

Source: Nielsen Online

Additionally, video streaming on CBS Sports saw massive gains during the tournament, with nearly a 300% gain in unique users watching video. Those viewers racked up more than 380 million minutes of viewing time in March.

CBS …

Now that the NCAA Tournament has tipped off, senior vice president for Nielsen Sports Tom Ziangas talks about how important March Madness is to the CBS brand as well as the basketball tournament’s appeal to advertisers.
“The one thing you think about as far as the NCAA tournament is it’s synonymous with CBS,” said Ziangas. “I think advertisers understand that. That’s why you have people like Coke and AT&T – and even GM is actually coming back to the tournament when they pulled out of the Super Bowl. Having that cache …

More than 78 million Americans visited sports websites in November, a 5% increase over the same month last year. 
 
Yahoo! Sports was the top sports site, drawing nearly 23 million unique visitors last month – a 2% jump from a year ago.  In November, the average Yahoo! Sports user spent 20% more time on the site, compared to last year.
 
ESPN.com placed second in Nielsen’s ranking, but showed the greatest increase in unique visitors (+12%).  ESPN’s users also logged on for 20% more sessions last month than in November 2007.
 
NFL Internet Network, FOX Sports on MSN, and CBS Sports …

Workplace traffic to U.S.-based sports websites was up by 26% in August, compared with traffic to online sports destinations in August 2007, Nielsen Online reported Thursday.
The Beijing Olympics and the start of fall football season may have had something to do with the spike in traffic, Jon Gibs, vice president, media analytics, Nielsen Online, noted.
“With broad interest in the Olympics, and the ramp up of the college and professional football seasons, August was a busy month for online sports fans,” Gibs said.  “The Web offered 24/7 access to news, results …