Women’s College Basketball Consumption Increases on ESPN360.com and ESPN Mobile Web; 15 Percent Increase in Women’s Tournament Challenge Bracket Entries

Through the first two rounds of the NCAA Women’s College Basketball Tournament, ESPN’s online content for women’s college basketball has increased on ESPN360.com and ESPN Mobile Web. In addition, entries for the 12^th Annual Women’s Tournament Challenge are also up significantly.

People are consuming live online streaming and mobile coverage of the Tournament more than ever before on ESPN360.com and ESPN’s industry-leading mobile Web site.

ESPN360.com

Through the first two rounds, total hours viewed of the women’s NCAA College Basketball Tournament on ESPN360.com are up more than double — 121 percent over the same period last year. ESPN360.com features live and replay coverage of every game of the Tournament. The live sports broadband network delivers more than 3,000 live, global sports events annually and is available at no cost to fans who receive their high-speed Internet connection from an affiliated service provider. ESPN360.com is currently available in nearly 25 million homes, up 40 percent in the past 12 months and more than triple its distribution just two years ago. It is available via approximately 45 Internet service providers nationwide, including AT&T, Verizon, RCN, Insight, Frontier, Cavalier, Charter, Mediacom, Conway, Grande Communications and many more. It is also available at no cost to approximately 18 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers connected to on-campus educational networks and on-base military networks (those with “.edu” and “.mil” domains).

Mobile

To date for the 2009 Tournament, visits to women’s college basketball content on the ESPN Mobile Web site are up nearly fourfold — 275 percent over the same period last year. ESPN Mobile Web is the leading sports destination on the mobile Web, averaging more than seven million unique visitors and accounting for a 66 percent share of all sports-related visitors to the Mobile Web in 2008.

Additionally, there were 230,000 entries for the Women’s Tournament Challenge, surpassing last year’s 200,000 entries by 15 percent. An analysis of all the entries submitted reveals:

· 64.5% of the entries picked Connecticut to win the National Championship;

· 15 entries picked North Carolina A&T to win the National Title, the lowest total of any team (0.01%);

· 190,269 of entries (95.3 %) incorrectly chose Tennessee to beat Ball State in the first round;

· 9,423 (4.7 %) picked Ball State to upset Tennessee in the first round;

· 190,521 (95.41%) entries selected Duke to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, while 2.7% (5,426) of the entries picked Michigan State;

· 4 entries predicted Connecticut, Iowa State, Vanderbilt and Rutgers advancing to the Final Four;

· The top four teams selected to advance to the Women’s Final Four were Connecticut (90%), Maryland (60%), Oklahoma (59%) and Duke (40%).

For this weekend’s Sweet Sixteen matchups:

· 2,499 (1.3%) entries picked California to defeat Connecticut;

· 30,881 (15.5%) entries picked Ohio State to defeat Stanford;

· 15,780 (7.9%) entries predicted Vanderbilt to defeat Maryland;

· 4,782 (2.4%) entries predicted Rutgers and Purdue would meet in the Sweet Sixteen

· 2,566 (1.3%) entries predicted Rutgers to defeat Purdue in the Sweet Sixteen.

At the end of the Tournament the Women’s Tournament Challenge winner will receive a $3,000 Best Buy gift card and a $1100 Best Buy random drawing.

In a new twist to ESPN’s Tournament coverage, women’s basketball analyst and reporter, Rebecca Lobo, will continue to provide behind-the-scenes insight into the world of women’s college basketball on Twitter through the NCAA Women’s Final Four in St. Louis. She’ll also share off-court thoughts about her day-to-day experiences and travels at http://twitter.com/RebeccaLobo.

The NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament continues on the ESPN networks with the Sweet 16, Saturday, March 28 – Sunday, March 29.  The Sweet 16 marks the start of the final 15 games of the Tournament, all available as national telecasts in high definition on ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD. ESPN’s Elite Eight coverage begins Monday, March 30 with the Final Four in St. Louis April 5 & 7. In addition, all of the women’s basketball studio specials are available in high definition.  All games are also on ESPN360.com.

For releases, schedules, photos and more, please visit the Women’s Basketball Media Kit.

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