HITWISE UKSPORTS UPDATE

New hero Flintoff more popular than Rooney

London, 14^th September 2005

With Englandstill revelling in Ashes glory, Hitwise - the leading online competitive intelligence service – today reports that Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff is taking the web by storm.

Searches for ‘Flintoff’ increase by 300%

Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveals that the country's new sporting hero has seen searches on him rise by 300% since the start of the Ashes series, reaching a peak during the 3rd Test match at Old Trafford. Captain Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen, whose maiden Test century secured the Ashes, have also seen a boost in searches as cricket fever gripped the nation.

By contrast, searches on one of football's biggest stars - Wayne Rooney - lag miserably behind, with searches on Flintoff currently 78% greater than searches on England's youngest ever goal-scorer. And during the 3rd Test Series, searches on Flintoff even overtook searches on the world's most famous footballer, David Beckham.

Cricket continues to be more popular than Football

The country's new favourite game continues to be more popular than football with 73% more searches, and since the start of the Ashes visits to cricket websites have grown by just under 50% - whilst searches have risen by more than 150%.

On the day of the Ashes victory, the Sporting Life Ashes 2005 website (ashes2005.sportlinglife.com) was the site sports fans spent longest visiting, with cricket fans remaining on the site for over 42 minutes as they anxiously checked the result. In addition, BBC Sport (news.bbc.co.uk/sport) had its highest daily market share figure for the entire year on Monday, representing 16.76% of visits made to sports sites in the UK.

Volume of searches on Andrew Flintoff, Michael Vaughan, Kevin Pietersen,

David Beckham and Wayne Rooney: July – September 2005

Searches on ‘Cricket’ and ‘Football’, July – September 2005

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about Hitwiseis available at www.hitwise.com.

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619