For the UK, Football Is Mobile Content’s Bread and Butter
Posted by geoffwhiting on December 20, 2007
Mobile media measurers M:Metrics revealed this week that football is the gold for mobile media in the UK. M:Metrics has found that over the past two years, there has been a significant jump in accessing sports information on mobiles around the times of major football events.
Accessing sports information comes via browsers, downloads and SMS alerts to handsets throughout major football championships. At the start of the FA Premier League in mid-August 2006, the number of users accessing sports information reached about 4.1 million, a nice jump from the 3.6 million who accessed information in July. The audience definitely fluctuates around the football season, reaching a mark of 4.7 million users in April 2006, as Chelsea made a move to win a possible second FA Premier League title, but dropping to almost three million users in June 2006, the month after the season ended.
A similar surge in accessing sports content happened throughout Europe during the FIFA World Cup in June and July of 2006. This was most significant in Germany, home of the tournament that year, where the number of users who received mobile sports information doubled from May to June.
“This is fascinating data, as it clearly demonstrates the impact the combination of compelling content, context and convenience has on mobile media usage,” said Paul Goode, senior analyst at M:Metrics. “While British operators may be disappointed in their football teams, who failed to advance to the European Cup, they should be encouraged by their performance attracting consumers to mobile content.”
The exact numbers for the World Cup, the 2006 FA Premier League season and other mobile studies such as the October Benchmark Survey, are available through M:Metrics at www.mmetrics.com/.
