Bleacher Report moves into second place: Only ESPN bigger
Bleacher Report reached a big milestone Tuesday. Founder Dave Finocchio tweeted the news. The numbers refer to unique visitors in the month of April, on all platforms:
For the 1st time in our history, http://t.co/8c3ZboiHCT was the 2nd largest sports website in the US (April-14) pic.twitter.com/teWa6AlGH9
— Dave Finocchio (@DaveFinocchio) May 13, 2014
Imagine if, 10 years ago, you’d said, “A site that does not exist at the moment is going to be the No. 2 sports site in the United States by 2014.” I think most people, including me, would have thought you were nuts. The online sports media universe seemed pretty set by then. ESPN, Yahoo Sports, FoxSports, CBS might jockey for position, but a new site busting into the top two? Nuts.
Jamie Mottram, content director at USA Today and a veteran of Yahoo Sports, which B/R passed for second place, tweeted about what a milestone the April numbers represent:
Been years since anyone cracked the top-2. RT @DaveFinocchio: For 1st time, B/R the 2nd largest sports site in the US pic.twitter.com/1GnraT7iKl
— Jamie Mottram (@JamieMottram) May 13, 2014
The “multi-platform” score cited in Finocchio’s tweet hasn’t been around that long. Until about a year ago, the standard measure was desktop uniques, where Yahoo Sports still leads B/R. The standard changed because it makes no sense to only measure desktop traffic in a world that’s increasingly mobile.