Michael Phelps is king of the Web as well as the pool

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:04:53 -0400

U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps has already won the most gold medals of any Olympian in history. As he continues in his quest to beat swimmer Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympic Games, Phelps is winning on another front: driving an incredible amount of Web traffic.

In a phone call with the Los Angeles Times, NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel and researcher Alan Wurtzel said that Phelps is the real draw for NBC's online traffic, although they are finding that visitors do stay for other content as well. In the call, they revealed some of their numbers: 1.7 million streams of the men's 4x100 freestyle relay, a growth of 3.6 million visitors (4.2 million to 7.8 million) between Friday and Monday, and an increase in mobile phone downloads of over 360,000 in that same period.

Mediaweek reported similar numbers from NBC, noting that while the NBC site logged 430,000 viewers for the opening ceremonies, once swimming (and gymnastics) started, that number increased over over 850,000. And eBay is seeing similar trends, with sales of Michael Phelps-related items doubling to approximately 80 items sold per day since the Olympics began.

Google Trends also shows a huge spike in search volume, with searches for Phelps starting a sharp upward climb right after he won the 400 Individual Medley. Interestingly enough, it isn't just the U.S. searching for Phelps information, but Singapore as well, with searches almost equal to that of the U.S.

Public domain photo of Michael Phelps from a White House photo by Eric Draper

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

Prediction: NBCOlympics.com to pass 20 million visits in August
News: Users run circles around NBC's Great Olympics Firewall
News: Microsoft piggybacks on Olympics fever to boost Silverlight