Compete Releases Ranking of Top Ten Sports Fan Sites in May

BOSTON – (July 1, 2009) -- Compete, a TNS Media company, today released the rankings of the top ten sports fan sites for May 2009, based on data from Compete's panel of two million US-based internet users. Even with the NBA and NHL playoffs underway in May, Major League Baseball fans outnumbered NBA fans online more than two to one and NHL fans more than four to one.  According to Compete, number-one ranked MLB.com reached more than 12,227,000 sports enthusiasts in May 2009 (up 35% since May 2008), followed by NBA.com with 5,624,776 unique visitors (UVs), Nascar.com with 3,716,636 UVs and NHL.com with 2,899,406 UVs.  

Compete also compared the May 2009 numbers to May 2008, which show a year-over-year increase in sports fan interest among the fans of the four major team sports - MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL with significant increases for MLB (35 percent) and the NBA (32 percent).  Meanwhile, wwe.com and nascar.com visits dropped while pgatour.com and minorleaguebaseball.com cracked the top ten in May 2009.

About Compete
Compete, a unit of TNS Media, helps the world’s top brands improve their marketing based on the online behavior of millions of consumers. Leading marketers such as Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Hyundai Motor America, Upromise, Chrysler, and Verizon Wireless rely on Compete's services to create effective online experiences and highly profitable advertising campaigns.  Compete’s online behavior database—the largest in the industry—makes the web as ingrained in marketing as it is in people’s lives.

Compete was founded in 2000 and is located in Boston, MA, with offices throughout the U.S.  For more information about us, please visit http://www.competeinc.com/, or to join the conversation visit http://www.compete.com/.

About TNS media
Established in more than 30 countries, TNS Media explores all the media—print, radio, TV, Internet, social media, cinema and outdoors worldwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and offers a full range of insights, analyses and audience measurement services.

TNS Media combines the deepest expertise in the industry to provide media and marketing intelligence including advertising expenditure monitoring, advertising creation monitoring, audience measurement, market influence analytics, online consumer behavior tracking, news monitoring, sports sponsorship evaluation and more.  The TNS Media companies track more than 3 million brands and provide vital market intelligence to 16,000 customers in the world. http://www.tnsmediagroup.com

The Kantar Group
The Kantar Group is one of the world's largest research, insight and consultancy networks. By uniting the diverse talents of more than 20 specialist companies – including the recently-acquired TNS – the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and actionable insights for the global business community. Its 26,500 employees work across 80 countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group’s services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies.  The Kantar Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of WPP Group plc. For further information, please visit http://www.kantargroup.com