For ESPN, the smartphone is the computer

My children watch ESPN. I don't because near as I can tell, there are no actual sports. Just news reports on criminals. Still, I thought this number was pretty telling: half of the users of ESPN's mobile services do not use any ESPN PC-based services.

Half of the users of the sports network’s SMS alerts, mobile Web site and applications are unique to the mobile medium.

“About half of people who use our mobile products don’t use our PC products—the mobile device could be their only Internet connection or their primary Internet-connected device,” said John Zehr, senior vice president and general manager of ESPN Mobile, Bristol, CT. “Mobile is not cannibalistic—it’s an amplifier.

“Fans migrate toward best available screen, and while we’re still seeing the majority of consumption on TV, our mobile audience is growing at an astounding rate,” he said. “In 2008 for the first time, and again last year, our mobile traffic actually exceeded our PC traffic on weekends.

“On college football Saturday and NFL Sunday we get more traffic on our mobile Web site than our wired Web site, and now there’s no going back—if you deliver a good experience, people will consume the content on their mobile device when they’re out and about.”

(See also the PDF attachment)