Football craze: Foreign leagues followership by Nigerians hits new heights on ESPN
The world’s leading digital sports brand has reported record traffic in Nigeria for April 2016 – a second consecutive month, owing to the football addiction amongst the country’s populace.
To put in perspective, Nigerians’ love for the beautiful game of football prompted 5.7 million unique visitors to access ESPN’s digital properties in in April, logging 16 million visits and spending over 133.7 million minutes, thus exceeding previous records of 4.9 million unique users, 14.6 million visits and 110 million minutes – all of which were new records set in March.
This growth is being driven by increasing interest and engagement with ESPN’s coverage of global football, especially English Premier League (up 30% month-over-month) and the historic title run by Leicester City FC, as well as Spanish La Liga (up 57% month-over-month) with Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid running Barcelona close in an epic title race.
‘We have seen remarkable stories in the title races in English and Spanish football, and with those stories we have seen parallel record growth in Nigerian fans spending time with ESPN online,’ Alan Fagan, Group Director, Sales and Sponsorship, ESPN EMEA, said.
‘Nigeria has a sports loving culture, and I am delighted that ESPN is increasingly becoming the first choice for many sports fans in the region. We are keen to further develop our brand and customer base in this important market.’
ESPN’s digital media growth in West Africa comes as it has continued to expand its global digital media leadership. In the past year, ESPN has launched a completely rebuilt web and smartphone app platform for its signature property ESPN.com, enabling the rollout of localized editions in multiple markets globally.
ESPN FC has grown its global traffic nearly 30% in three years, and introduced a number of features for African football fans including popular Nigerian journalist, Colin Udoh’s weekly column.
Nigerians and football continue to be inseparable…