Ratings and Viewership Increases for ESPN's "SportsCenter" and "NFL Live" during Week of Unprecedented NFL News

ESPNNewYork.com's Best Day Ever Highlights Strong Traffic to ESPN Digital Platforms

In a week of unprecedented NFL offseason news that included Peyton Manning signing with the Denver Broncos, Tim Tebow being traded to the New York Jets, and the announcement of the NFL's Saints bounty suspensions, ratings and viewership for ESPN's SportsCenter shows and NFL Live on Monday through Wednesday (March 19-21) witnessed sizeable increases from the same days a year ago (March 21-23).

The three days of NFL Live shows (4 p.m. ET) averaged 666,000 households and 721,000 viewers, based on a 0.7 rating, increases of 73 percent (vs. 384,000 in 2011), 63 percent (441,000) and 75 percent (0.4 rating). All editions of SportsCenter averaged 559,000 households and 600,000 viewers based on a 0.6 rating, increases of 21 percent (461,000 in 2011), 15 percent (522,000) and 20 percent (0.5 rating) compared to the same three days a year ago. ESPN2 saw sizeable gains as well with First Take up 68 percent (421,000 vs. 250,000) among households and up 58 percent among viewers (447,000 vs. 283,000).

ESPNNewYork.com logged its best day ever with over 2.6 million unique visitors and 4.6 million page views on Wednesday. Additionally, the site logged more than 1.9 million unique visitors to its story on Tebow's trade to the Jets that day. On ESPN.com, the breaking news story on the Saints' bounty suspensions generated 1.4 million unique visitors, while on the ESPN mobile Web, Tebow-related content generated 2.3 million page views and Saints-related stories generated 970,000 page views.