Skip to content
Jan 7 / King Kaufman

A look back at the most popular B/R stories of 2012

,

I thought I’d start the New Year at the Bleacher Report Blog with a rundown of the most-read and most-viewed B/R stories of 2012.

It can be instructive to see and think about what caught fire with our audience. Note the difference between the B/R content on the lists below and the stories on this list of the top 10 most-viewed stories of 2012 on ESPN.com. (The list is in that middle, sidebar-looking column.)

That list suggests that people turn to ESPN in huge numbers for breaking news stories—”QB Peyton Manning chooses Broncos” was the most-viewed story of the year, and seven of the top 10 were straight breaking-news pieces. The other three were a Rick Reilly column about Tim Tebow, a magazine-style feature about sex in the Olympic Village and the LeBron James page in a multi-page ranking of NBA players.

Bleacher Report’s strengths lie elsewhere, with crowds flocking to ongoing, real-time coverage such as the Olympic medal count, and analysis that can range from serious (mock drafts, player and team grades) to frivolous (most outrageous tennis outfits!).

It’s important to note that these are not necessarily lists of the best stories and videos of 2012. Just the most successful in terms of reads and views. There might be some overlap, but traffic isn’t the only way to evaluate the work we do. What matters is whether we’re giving our readers engaging, entertaining and informative content about the teams and topics they’re interested in.

Here are the top 10 most-read stories of 2012 on Bleacher Report:

  1. Olympic Medal Count 2012: Updated Tracker, Standings and List of Winners, 1.5 M reads
  2. 50 Most Worthless Players in the NBA, 1.2 M reads
  3. World Football: 25 Sweetest Goals This Season, 1.2 M reads
  4. Biggest Reason Why Each NBA Team Won’t Win a Championship in 2013, 952k reads
  5. Top 100 Players in the NBA, 889k reads
  6. 2012 NFL Mock Draft: Two Round Projections with Updated Order (first mock draft after the end of the regular season), 853k reads
  7. 2012 NFL Draft Grades: Full Draft Results Report Card, 766k reads
  8. Ranking All 124 College Football Teams, Summer Edition, 728k reads
  9. 2013 MLB Free Agent Tracker: Rumors and Destinations for Top 100 Free Agents, 726k reads
  10. NFL Draft Tracker: Final Grades for Each Team, 711k reads

(Note: I had the wrong story linked for No. 3, the 25 sweetest world-football goals. Fixed. Sorry for the error.)

Here are the top five most-viewed B/R videos of 2012, according to analytics provided by Ooyala:

  1. 5 Most Worthless Players in the NFL, 484k plays
  2. Worst Tennis Outfits, 338k plays
  3. 5 Most Outrageous Tennis Outfits Ever, 263k plays
  4. Gymnastics Parents: Crazy or Just Like the Others? Alicia Sacramone Weighs In, 165k plays
  5. Exclusive Kate Upton Interview: Talks Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover and More, 160k plays

Finally, here are the top five teams with the most people subscribed to their Team Stream feeds:

  1. Los Angeles Lakers, 296k
  2. Miami Heat, 219k
  3. Dallas Cowboys, 203k
  4. New York Yankees, 181k
  5. San Francisco 49ers, 177k

 

Comments are closed.

Filed under On media, Shoutouts
  • http://twitter.com/scar988 Scott Carasik

    wow. I didn’t realize that article wound up being the 10th most read on the site last year. that’s pretty awesome.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dean.siemon Dean Siemon

    Gosh. And here I am getting excited one college bowl pick piece got 35,000 reads. (Sigh)

    • King_Kaufman

      You SHOULD be excited. This top 10 represents something less than .005 percent of all stories published on B/R in 2012. If your standard is to make that list, you’re going to have a very good chance of being disappointed. By way of comparison, the baseball players in the Hall of Fame represent more than 1 percent of everyone who’s ever played. That is: more than one out of every 100. These stories represent less than one out of every 20,000!

    • http://twitter.com/scar988 Scott Carasik

      These are just based on reads. Honestly, I look back on that NFL Draft piece and I don’t see a great article. I see something very amateurish that I wish I could re-do this coming year with more quality.