Winter Sports Apps & Websites

Delivered July 16th, 2019. Contributors: Ivana R. and

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Winter Sports Websites & Mobile Platforms

The requested traffic data for each winter sports website has been provided in the attached spreadsheet.
The number of returning visitors has been calculated in column I by subtracting the number of unique visitors from the total number of visitors.
RESEARCH STRATEGYEven though the websites have been ranked by SimilarWeb, we have opted to use data from SEMRush instead, because SEMRush provides a breakdown of visitor data, unlike SimilarWeb. This means that, depending on the metric chosen to determine the top websites, there might be a slight discrepancy between the raking assigned by SimilarWeb and the ranking that could be inferred from the visitor data in the spreadsheet.

Since all website traffic analytics platforms offer information on the number of countries to paying users only, we have instead provided the country that generates the most traffic for each website, along with the percentage of total traffic that is coming from that country.

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Winter Sports Websites & Mobile Platforms Part 1 of 2

The top 10 websites related to winter sports have been provided in the attached spreadsheet.
Three of the top 10 websites are based in Russia.
There are several websites in the top 10 that are focused on skiing and a few that are focused on hockey.
RESEARCH STRATEGYTo identify the top websites related to winter sports, according to the number of visitors, we have consulted website analytics services like Alexa, SimilarWeb and SEMRush. SimilarWeb provides a list of the top 50 winter sports websites in the world, ranked according to website traffic, i.e. the number of visitors.

The list was a great starting point, but, because of the way SimilarWeb's algorithm works, it included some websites that are not applicable. We have excluded certain websites, like those that sell winter sports equipment or websites of ski resorts. In the spreadsheet, we have presented a curated list of the top 10 websites in the world that provide coverage of various winter sports.

We have also checked expert reviews of the best winter sports websites, but we have decided not to include those results because they were either US-specific, like Snow Magazine, or were not solely focused on winter sports, like Eurosport.

Because most mobile applications that focus on winter sports news, videos, announcements, highlights, and athletes are essentially accompanied by websites and just present the same information in a different way, we presented the top 10 websites in column A, and if the website has a related mobile app we have entered "yes" in column B and provided a footnoted link to the mobile app.

Since website analytics services calculate traffic statistics differently, we have cross-referenced the list created using SimilarWeb's data with SEMRush. Even though the two services provided slightly different traffic data, the relative ranking between the website remained unchanged.

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Audience Breakdown

The audience statistics for the identified websites have been provided in the attached spreadsheet.
Hockeydb.com has a predominantly male audience (89%) that is between 25 and 34 years of age.
Newschoolers.com has a predominantly male audience (68%) that is between 25 and 34 years of age.
RESEARCH STRATEGYWe were unable to identify the demographics of visitors for most of the websites identified in the spreadsheet. Each data point that was unavailable has been marked as N/A in the spreadsheet.

To try to determine demographic information about the website visitors, we have first checked the websites themselves to see if they market to a specific audience. Where applicable, we have also checked the websites of companies that own the platforms. We were able to identify some general statements using this approach. For example, some of the websites claim they cater to "winter sports enthusiasts". However, we were ultimately unable to determine the breakdown of the audience by age or gender using this approach.

We have then consulted website analytics services like SimilarWeb, SEMRush and Alexa. Some of these services do offer visitor demographic data, but only to paying subscribers. Alexa, for example, shows site's audience interests to free users, but not a breakdown by age or gender. This approach enabled us to identify the audience demographics for two websites using Quantcast. Quantcast is a free service that provides website audience demographic data, but since it's a relatively new service, its database does not include information on most of the websites in the spreadsheet.

Finally, we have attempted to identify the demographic information by looking for demographic information on the typical winter sports enthusiast in the country from which the website received the most traffic. We have consulted statistical offices in the countries, like the Russian Federal State Statistics Service and the websites of sports ministries. Unfortunately, we were only able to uncover very general demographic data about sports enthusiasts in general, but there was no specific information on the audience breakdown by age or gender, nor was there any information specific to winter sports enthusiasts.

In the end, we have concluded that the requested information does not exist in the public domain for most websites. Judging by our general search and by the data uncovered for two of the websites, we could conclude that the identified websites have a predominantly male audience between 25 and 44 years of age. We have also concluded that the demographic data for most of the identified websites is available to users who are willing to pay for a subscription to Alexa.