World Cup Success for Sports Websites

A quarter of the UK's online population - six million people - visited a sports or gambling website during the World Cup, with BBC Sport proving the most popular destination, according to research.

Internet sports and gambling fans viewed 420m web pages in total during the tournament - the equivalent of an average of 71 pages each, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings.

Two-thirds of the audience were men and 40% were over 45, while 25- to 44-year olds stayed online twice as long as the under-25s - 47 minutes compared with 25 minutes.

"The 2006 Fifa World Cup will go down as an extraordinary success online ... the websites have provided a array of more interactive and engaging content than ever before. Whether this is text, photos, audio or video," said Alex Burmaster, European analyst at Nielson/Net Ratings.

"Part of the success of the online media during the tournament lay in the significant advantages it holds over other traditional media when it comes to sheer levels of supply and demand.

"Rather than having to wait for specific broadcast times or hoping the newspapers would provide the information fans were looking for, the online format is able to provide all this in a single sitting, at any time," Mr Burmaster said.

The BBC Sport website was the most popular internet sports and gambling destination during the World Cup.

It had 3.4 million unique users, a 58% share of the total sports and gambling audience, three times as many as its nearest rival, the official Fifa site, which had an 18% share, according to Nielson.

MSN/Sky Sports proved the most popular site with women, with nearly half - 48% - of users being female. Overall, women spent an average of 16 minutes on sports and gambling sites each visit.

However, gambling sites were twice as "sticky" as sports sites. Bet365 was the best site at capturing the audience - with each user spending on average two hours and nine minutes on the site during the tournament.