Yahoo! Blitzes Fantasy Foes

"The Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Web site attracted 5.6 million unique visitors in August, according to comScore Media Metrix. That was about double the 2.9 million registered by Disney's (DIS:NYSE - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) ESPN.Com, the next largest service, comScore said. The market research firm estimates that there were 10.7 million unique visitors that month to all fantasy sites. The figure measures people who view content such as articles about player injuries. "

Indeed, once people go onto a Web site to play fantasy sports, they tend to linger. Fantasy Players spend an average of roughly 30 minutes on the Yahoo! site per visit, longer than people spend on Yahoo! News and HotJobs, according to comScore. Yahoo! saw a 42% increase in 2004 in the number of people who purchased some sort of service related to fantasy sports.

Players also tend to remain loyal to their sites, making them an attractive audience for advertisers. The enthusiasts, who are mostly men, have yearly household incomes of $72,750, about 40% above the national median, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. People spend about $100 a season on entry fees and play in an average of two and a half leagues, according to the association's survey. It estimates that about 13 million adults have played fantasy games in the past year.

[TheStreet]