WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR DIGITAL TENNIS FIX?

I took some time last night to find out where the majority of American’s go to get their tennis “fix” online and what I found was a little surprising.

I thought maybe the websites of the major tennis superstars would lead the list. The Roddick’s, the Williams’, the Blake’s, the Oudin’s, etc. But according to Alexa.com, the internet’s auditing service for web activity, none of these sites made the top 10 (non-general sports sites; such as ESPN or MSN.FOXSPORTS) based on general “Tennis” activity. In fact, only one athlete was in the top 10 at all; www.rogerfederer.com came in at 6th.

It is also pretty clear that the web is all about what’s hot and what’s happening and users see a premium on today, versus yesterday or tomorrow. Of the 4 grand-slam sites, the least popular for American TV viewers annually, the Australian Open tops Alexa’s tennis rankings right now coming in at number 2,621 in overall traffic rank and 1,116 in US specific traffic ranking. TENNIS.com was next, followed by USTA.com, the home site of the before-mentioned greatest player ever (with all do respect to Sampras, Borg, etc.), and MENSTENNISFORUM,com at #5. The later is an interesting tennis social community site where members log on to discuss equipment, surfaces, tournaments, their own games and tennis heroes.

With the recency syndrome we all suffer from in today’s 24-hour cable news and internet world, quite a few of these sites will have more peaks and valleys throughout the year than the stock market when you look at them over the last 24 months. Take the US Open and USTA sites for instance. They rank #10 and #3 (for today anyway) but come the start of the USTA Spring and Summer Leagues and as the US Open Series heats up in August, these sites will rocket up to the top 2 or 3 spots, as will the Roland Garros and Wimbledon sites during the late spring and early summer. This rise and fall moves as players and fans roll through the roller coaster ATP and WTA calendars each year.

So who as staying power throughout the year? To start with, look at Tennis Magazines site- www.tennis.com. The URL says it all and it is the most consistently highly viewed site in the US and one of the highest in the world. Yesterday they were at #2 with a world rank of 17,482 and an American ranking of #6,921. And don’t sleep on internet retailer TENNIS-WAREHOUSE.com. They are a powerhouse in tennis web traffic. Maybe the largest most complete selection of tennis goods and apparel coupled with Talk Tennis, their social networking site, gives them a world of tennis power on the web. If they offered news, they would bolt ahead of TENNIS.com and USTA.com with a US ranking of 3,328…wow!

By comparison, our site, www.leetennis.com is 11,194,789 in the world as of yesterday…that only puts us 11,194, 788 spots beyond Google, the Roger Federer if you will of the web. We will typically run up inside the top 1,000,000 sites the world during the clay court season though. Needless to say, we have plenty of work to do to improve this.

No matter where you go to get your tennis on, keep supporting our sport and if you get time, go check out your favorite site on Alexa.com… and please check out www.leetennis.com and our sister site, www.playtheclay.com and help us break into the top 10 million next week. Your help and the opening of the clay court season in the US this spring should help us greatly. Have fun and stay warm this winter!

Randy Futty
General Manager