Major sporting events have the ability to seriously amp up reader interest in the on-field action. From build-up coverage to live reporting and post-event punditry, our premium publisher content perfectly complements these significant sporting spectacles and becomes a must-read for our monthly Sport audience of 32m+ readers.

The London Marathon took place at on Sunday, 23 April. Interest in the 26-mile run typically grows engagement with our Running topic by 4.7 times, while Athletics page views are almost 3x higher on average. With the marathon firing the starting gun on 2023’s packed sport schedule, we take a look at some sizzling Sport stats to get you thinking about the next few months.

Women’s Football

The FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off on Thursday, 20 July. We take a look back at some of the key engagement stats from last year’s Euro 2022 tournament, famously won by the Lionesses:

• Across Euro 2022, 33.9m average weekly Football PVs were +16% higher than the 2021/22 English Premier League season average.

• England’s first game of the 2022 Euro’s grew daily engagement with Women’s Football content specifically by 50%. Throughout the group stages interest primarily falls on the match days, with daily engagement increasing +35% on the Lionesses’ game days.

• Victory for the Lionesses in the final drove more than 6x the average daily Women’s Football page views seen during the tournament. This above-average level of engagement remained consistent in the days leading up to and four days following the final result.

Rugby – the Six Nations Championships

Beginning on Friday, 8 September, the Rugby World Cup in France will see the UK home nations and Ireland take on the best of the best from around the globe. Expect similar engagement to the Six Nations:

• Across the tournament, average weekly Rugby page views in game weeks were more than 2x higher than across the 2021/22 Gallagher Premiership Rugby season.

• Rugby page views grew by an average of +38% in game weeks, starting with a huge +79% growth in game week one.

• The championship’s 4.9 average page views per reader was +25% higher than the 2021/22 Premiership Rugby season average. This grew to +38% higher in the last three weeks.

Tennis – Wimbledon

The Wimbledon Championships starts on Monday, 3 July. The annual grand slam takes place at the all England club in south west London and typically serves up engagement growth for our Tennis content:

• 27.5m Tennis page views across Wimbledon 2022 were +165% higher than the 2021 championship, as Cameron Norrie reached the semi finals.

• Typically, Tennis engagement across the two-week tournament increases seven-fold compared to the two weeks before it takes place.

• Our Tennis audience of 10.8m unique users is expected to grow significantly during Wimbledon this year, especially with a resurgent Andy Murray.

Horse Racing – the Grand National

The Grand National takes place every April and is something of a national obsession. The Aintree race is a brilliant example of a single sporting event that brings out fair-weather racing fans.

• Interest in the Grand National increases weekly page views for Sport by an average of +10%. Of our weekly Sport audience, those reading about Horse Racing increases eightfold.

• Engagement with our Horse Racing content was almost 15 times higher in the week of the Grand National as interest picked up the pace. On average, weekly page views for the topic grow by +997% with PVs last week +48% higher.

• Another big winner from increased audience interest in the Aintree race is the Gambling content topics from our Events & Attractions category. Typically, we see three times higher Gambling page views in the week of the National than the seven days before.

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