Sports-related web pages have grown 17 per cent in the last 12 months thanks to World Cup fever.
Of the top five countries hosting the highest proportion of sporting web sites, the US lead with 52 per cent, followed by Brazil and Germany at 8.9 per cent, then the UK at 6.3 per cent and Canada at 3.6 per cent.
James Rendell, Senior Technology Specialist at Internet Security Systems the company that undertook the research said: ‘With 5.5 billion web pages on the internet today, a 17 per cent increase is a phenomenal rise in the number of sites dedicated to the sporting world.’
In addition to the World Cup other sporting events such as the Tour de France are factors in making website operators expand their sports websites.
Rendell sees widespread adoption of broadband driving a culture of people searching out the sports they are interested in. He said: ‘It seems the Internet has taken the viewer away from the TV and placed them in front of the computer.
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