Hitwise Press Release
Fantasy sports websites a hit during FIFA World Cup
Auckland, June 21, 2006. According to Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, Kiwi surfers
are keen to take an online punt on their favorite football team. Sports – Fantasy websites accounted for 10% of visits
to all Sports websites, for the week ending June 17, 2006. Soccer was the only sports category to receive more visits,
with 20.6% share.
TVNZ Virtual Football (www.tvnzvirtualfootball.co.nz) which is a fantasy league for the 2006 World Cup has shot up in
website rankings to account for 59.2% of traffic in the Sports – Fantasy category, week ending June 17, 2006. The Yahoo!
FIFA World Cup Fantasy League (en.fifaworldcup.fantasysports.yahoo.com) accounted for 5.6% of visits, ranking second
behind the TVNZ Virtual Football website,
Visits to the Sports – Soccer category were dominated by the official FIFA World Cup (_fifaworldcup.yahoo.com) website,
which accounted for 22% of visits for the week ending June 17, 2006. The highest ranking local website was Soccer2 Draws
and Results (portal.soccer2.org.nz) with 20.5% local market share, followed by Soccer Auckland (www.soccer2.org.nz) with
16.9% share.
Hitwise Search Intelligence indicate that there were 4,438 search terms to the Sports Fantasy and Soccer categories
combined for the 24 weeks ending June 17, 2006. Search terms to drive significant traffic to both categories included,
‘soccer world cup’, ‘fantasy football’ and ‘fantasy premier league’.
Click to enlarge
NZ Share of Visits to TVNZ Virtual Football in Sports - Fantasy
ENDS