X Games

Wednesday, 10 August 2011 13:49

Twenty-Nine Hours of Content on ESPN Digital Platforms Results in Record Multimedia Growth; Increases in Telecast Total Reach and Spectator Attendance

During X Games 17, held in Los Angeles July 28-31, fans were able to consume original X Games content on more platforms than ever before, and digital content consumption showed continued and significant growth.  In addition, 37 million people tuned into television coverage across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN on ABC – up six percent from last year (35 million).The event’s successes also included the highest attendance in seven years as well as record usage on ESPN3.com and the company’s other digital platforms, including espn.com/action, xgames.com, mobile devices, Facebook, Twitter and more.

ESPN televised 25 hours of live HD X Games programming on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN on ABC, while  ESPN 3D televised 21 hours live. A total of 29 hours of content was also distributed across ESPN’s digital platforms, including ESPN3.com, ESPN.com/action, XGames.com and ESPN Mobile TV. Original content, results and updates were also distributed through the X Games social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr. Outside the United States, X Games content was delivered to more than 232 million homes and live to 192 countries and territories, including Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Caribbean, Europe, Israel, Latin America, Mexico, Middle East and New Zealand.

On Saturday, July 30, ESPN debuted X Cast. The live X Games webcast was simultaneously streamed alongside that afternoon’s telecasts, offering fans a companion screen experience to enhance engagement.  X Cast featured compelling and unique content, live athlete chats, reporters providing behind the scenes commentary and much more.

The events success this year included:

Online

• X Games 17 digital content on ESPN.com, ESPN 3.com, and ESPN Mobile delivered double-digit percentage growth in usage across the board compared to last year during the four-day event (July 28-31).
• ESPN.com/Action averaged 253,000 daily unique visitors with an average time spent of 7.4 minutes, up 61 percent and 13 percent respectively compared to X Games 16.  It also averaged 290,000 visits a day during the X Games, up 55 percent over what Winter X Games 15 averaged in January 2011.  For the entire month of July, the section logged 2.3 million visits, making it the most visited month ever for the Action section.
• Live coverage on ESPN3.com, ESPNnetworks.com and WatchESPN logged over 5.3 million minutes consumed of X Games content, up 74% compared to last year.
• The X Cast companion screen experience on Saturday afternoon, July 30, generated 462,000 viewer minutes and 81,000 streams from 25,000 unique viewers.
• During X Games 17, ESPN also received record growth and engagement across all X Games social platforms:

Facebook

• The X Games page on Facebook saw a nearly four-fold increase (up 284 percent) in “likes” and comments compared to the same days last year. Post views for the page were up more than double (112 percent) from the same time period last year and rose to more than 18.7 million. Unique users rose more than nine times (up 838 percent) compared to last year’s X Games 16 and the number of fans of the page increased to more than 2.2 million.

Twitter

• The X Games twitter name @XGames was mentioned more than 20,000 times during the fourdays of competition. #XGames was tweeted 69,000 times and reached more than 21 million people. Additionally, ESPN’s X Games Human Twitter campaign generated 1,300 tweets and reached more than eight million people. Notable celebrities tweeting about the X Games included P Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Lupe Fiasco, Travis Barker and Lil Wayne.
• ESPN’s Twitter feed featured event updates, breaking news, competition results and a behind-the-scenes look at X Games 17 athletes and courses. X Games followers on Twitter increased by more than 10,000 during the four days of the X Games, The @XGames twitter account had seven tweets re-tweeted more than 100 times.

YouTube

• The X Games channel on YouTube had its most trafficked week ever with more than 1.8 million video views. Video views were up 192 percent from the same time period last year. The X Games channel averaged close to half a million video views per day on each of the four days of the event and more than 6.6 million total views from July 25-August 7.

Mobile

• The X Games 17 app on iOS and Android mobile devices averaged 46,000 daily unique visitors during the X Games. The app also reached the #1 spot in the Sports Category of the App Store amongst free downloads on Saturday.  Additionally the app was downloaded 99,000 times during the four days of coverage (July 28-31).
• Fans also tuned in while on the go during the four days of X, which drove average daily unique visitors to the ESPN mobile Web to 3.7 million, up 36 percent compared to the same four days last year. The mobile Web homepage alone was up 24 percent in daily unique visitors with an average of 2.2. million, bringing in 4.2 million average daily visits from Thursday-Sunday.

Television

• Despite three fewer hours of coverage, 37 million people tuned into X Games programming at some point this year – up 6% from last year (35 million)
• X Games 17 delivered a 0.6 U.S. rating, averaging 732,000 households and 1,039,000 viewers (P2+) across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. The number of viewers rose five percent from last year.
• The Sunday afternoon ESPN telecast on July 31 delivered a 1.34 HH coverage rating and averaged 1,945,000 viewers. It was the second-most viewed summer X telecast ever on ESPN (behind the Sunday afternoon telecast on 8/20/2000).

Attendance

• The X Games 17 total attendance in Los Angeles was 141,500 – an increase from 2010 and the highest record attendance since X Games 10 in 2004.