PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, April 19, 1999 - - Sports sites are becoming more important to female Web users, according to an NPD Online Research survey that found 36% of females who go online retrieve sports news via the Internet. Nearly half (46%) of those females polled who obtain their sports information from the Internet reported that they now retrieve more sports news from the Web compared to six months ago. While most female Web users still go to the television as their primary source of sports information, 23% of females who indicated the Internet as one of their sports news resources reported the Web as their primary news source for sports.
Convenience was the most important reason that females use the Internet for sports information. Seventeen percent of those females reported accessing a particular sports news Web site at least once a day. When at work, 34% confirmed that the Internet is the first place they turn to for breaking sports news; at home, 20% said they turn to the Web first.
"The Internet has made sports information readily available in varying levels of detail to accommodate the differing tastes of both the avid fan and the casual spectator. As females surf from site to site, they have the opportunity of being exposed to different forms of sports information (e.g., advertisements, headlines, links)," says David Ow of NPD Online Research. "Additional coverage of sports issues is something for women's sites such as ivillage.com and women.com to consider. Even females who are going to sports Web sites for detailed information may appreciate getting headline information and more in-depth stories elsewhere."
NPD found that females mirror males in what they want from sports news Web sites. Females reported the following features as most important to sports news Web sites.
| Accuracy of information | (89%) |
| Up-to-date information | (85%) |
| Quality of information | (79%) |
| Ease of finding information | (72%) |
| Easy-to-read format | (67%) |
Interactive chat sessions ranked last with only 7% of the females reporting them as an important feature on a sports news Web site.
The survey showed that espn.com received visits from the most female Internet sports fans, with 42% of those women who go to sports sites reporting they had gone to espn.com for sports and 13% ranking the site as their main destination for online sports news. Other popular sites "ever visited" by females were abcsports.com (33%), nfl.com (29%), msnbcsports.com (25%), foxsports.com (25%), nascar.com (18%) and sportsline.com/CBS (17%). About a third of females visit personal pages or search and navigational guides for sports information, such as My Yahoo! (19%), My Excite (13%) and Lycos Personal Guide (4%).
Females who use the Web for sports news tend to be between the ages of 25 and 44, with an average household income of $64,000. Female Internet sports fans are inclined to be married (68%), and a majority have some college education or have completed higher education (64%).
About the Study
The NPD electronic sports news survey was conducted as part of the NPD Online Research omnibus survey. Three thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven individuals from NPD's Online Panel, a Web-representative sample of individuals prerecruited to participate in surveys, responded to the questionnaire in February. One thousand, five hundred and ninety-five respondents were female.
About NPD Online Research
NPD Online Research, a division of The NPD Group, is a leader in developing World Wide Web-based technologies to conduct and deliver market research and analysis. The NPD Online Panel is a prerecruited sample of Web representative individuals used for conducting marketing research on the Web.
About The NPD Group, Inc.
The NPD Group, Inc. is an international marketing information company headquartered in Port Washington, New York. Founded in 1953, the firm specializes in providing consumer and retail sales tracking and custom research for a wide range of industries, including the interactive industry, and is the founder of Media Metrix. NPD is the ninth largest market research firm in the U.S. based upon 1997 revenues, according to the American Marketing Association's Honomichl 50. NPD has offices and affiliations in 36 countries, covering North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.