BBC Sport hails biggest ever digital month

With the Glasgow Commonwealth Games currently under way, BBC Sport has announced record digital traffic driven by the major sporting events of the summer so far, including the World Cup, Wimbledon, British Grand Prix and The Open. June was BBC Sport’s biggest-ever month with 77.5m unique browsers, beating the previous record of 73.6m set during the London 2012 Olympics.

June also saw the highest-ever weekly mobile reach, with 8.1m unique UK mobile browsers during the first full week of the World Cup (16-22 June). And it achieved its highest ever daily international reach — with 3.4m unique browsers across all devices after Germany’s demolition of Brazil on 9 July.

Since the first major event of the summer kicked off with the World Cup in Brazil (12 June) until the end of The Open Championship (20 July), a total of 96m unique browsers (62.3m UK and 37.8m international) accessed BBC Sport across PCs, tablets, mobiles and connected TVs.

This included the biggest-ever month in BBC Sport’s history, with the World Cup and Wimbledon helping to drive 77.5m unique browsers (50.8m UK and 28.1m international), beating the previous record of 73.6m (49.7m UK browsers and 24.9m International) set during the 2012 London Olympics.

Audiences from around the globe turned to BBC Sport’s expert coverage in record numbers, twice breaking the previous record for daily international reach, which stood at 2.9m unique browsers from last year’s football transfer deadline day (1 September, 2013). News of Luis Suarez’s ban for his infamous bite helped drive 3.1m unique browsers (1 July), followed by reaction and analysis over Germany’s 7-1 victory over Brazil driving 3.4m unique browsers (9 July).

In addition, during the two week period where the World Cup, Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix overlapped (23 June–6 July) over 17.3m unique international browsers visited BBC Sport – a figure only surpassed during the first two weeks of the London 2012 Olympics with 17.5m.

The BBC Sport Facebook page amassed 1.25 million new fans during the World Cup, becoming the biggest UK sports broadcaster Facebook page with 4.8 million fans. It helped the team to engage with a record 6 million unique fans in one week around the World Cup final, topping off an impressive 12 months where the account grew by 2,520% (July 2013-July 2014).

Chris Condron, Head of Product for BBC Sport, says: “We’re extremely proud of these latest figures as they show how growing numbers of audiences are enjoying BBC Sport’s expert coverage from around the world.

“We’ve been evolving our technology to provide live digital coverage across any device since London 2012, focusing on what audiences really want: their choice of the BBC’s best live TV, radio and text content from major events at their fingertips, alongside an increased range of interactivity and social media.

“There’s plenty more to come from BBC Sport this summer with the Commonwealth Games and the new football season, which features the return of the FA Cup to the BBC.” The BBC Sport app for mobiles and tablets has been downloaded over 4.5m times in the UK and has recently added support for Google Chromecast on Android and iOS.