Outkick Is Four Years Old: Here's Our Reader Data

Yesterday Outkick the Coverage turned four years old. 

Four years ago, when I started Outkick, an awful lot of people thought I was an idiot. (Some things never change). All you had to do was read the Twitter mentions on the day we launched to see how many people said Outkick sucked and wouldn't last. Four years later, now that we've established that Outkick won't just survive, it will thrive, most of those critics are still sitting on Twitter, only now they're bitching about Outkick's success.

I take great pleasure in their discomfort.

But I don't run Outkick to make critics mad, I do it because we've done exactly what I hoped created a big, wacky community of readers who like to laugh and be entertained. Everywhere I go now Outkick readers come up and share stories about how much they appreciate the site. You have no idea how gratifying that is since most of the time I'm writing on the site from my home, sitting in my underwear. These people are from all walks of life, all races, all parts of the country.

The only thing they have in commons is an appreciation for any site that makes their work day pass a little bit faster.

I'm happy to oblige.  

Four years ago when the site went live, I had no idea what the future would bring. Hell, I was overwhelmed at the fact that I would write every day for as far as I could see. I had a three year old and a nine month old and I was just worried how much money I might end up losing my family. Until you've tried to pitch advertisers on investing in a website that doesn't exist, you haven't lived. Earlier this month was the first time in four years I've taken a week off from writing. And all of you were pissed at me for not doing the mailbags. Even after four years of straight work!  

When I started Outkick four years ago -- you can go read my original manifesto on July 20th, 2011 -- I ended with this credo of what I wanted our site to be:

"I want it to be funny.

I want it to be smart.

I want it to occasionally make you cry.

I want it to be better, more honest, and more independent than what you can find anywhere else.

And, not to be forgotten, I want our dick jokes and hot girl pictures to be better than your run-of-the mill hot girl pics and dick jokes.

Is that too much to ask? I hope not.

Put simply, like another Southerner before me, I have a dream.

Now I just hope y'all don't shoot me too."   

Four years later, thanks to all of you -- our readers, our writers, our haters -- for making this the most fun four years of my professional career. 

After four years, Outkick has graduated college, but unlike in your real lives the best is still yet to come.  

...

One of the things I've done with Outkick since we started is share our internal numbers. I do this because I really do believe this is your site too. I want you to see how we're doing since so many of you are big parts of our success. You're the ones spreading word about Outkick to your friends and family.

This Outkick data all comes from FoxSports.com reports. 

This year Outkick had 10,181,287 unique readers. (We average somewhere around 2 million uniques a month, although that number is starting to grow rather precipitously. For instance, July of this month is on track to be our most read month since we switched off of Google analytics and on to Fox's trackers. While Twitter gets a ton of attention in the media, Facebook is by far the engine driving readership for every website in America. Facebook sends us six or seven times the readership as Twitter. Honestly, my advice to young writers would be to spend more time on Facebook, less on Twitter. That's where the audience is.)

Here are our 50 biggest markets with the number of unique readers that come from each of these city/markets. (Worth noting, these aren't per capita numbers, these are actual numbers so the bigger the city, in theory, the more opportunities for readers. Additional note, these are metro areas, so Atlanta, for instance, would contain all surrounding suburbs in the Atlanta MSA. Some of these, New York City, for instance, would cross state lines.)

As Outkick has grown, we've moved beyond the South and started to make real inroads all over the country. But the South remains our base. 

1. Atlanta 798,872 7.8%

2. Dallas-Ft. Worth 482,024 4.7%

3. Nashville 407,503 4.0%

4. New York 403,430 4.0%

5. Chicago 364,496 3.6%

6. Houston 360,082 3.5%

7. Los Angeles 339,733 3.3%

8. Birmingham (Ann and Tusc) 229,243 2.3%

9. Washington 220,940 2.2%

10. Philadelphia 194,603 1.9%

11. Cleveland-Akron (Canton) 179,094 1.8%

12. Orlando-Daytona Bch-Melbrn 177,022 1.7%

13. Knoxville 172,603 1.7%

14. San Francisco-Oak-San Jose 141,959 1.4%

15. Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota) 134,876 1.3%

16. Charlotte 134,591 1.3%

17. Seattle-Tacoma 129,010 1.3%

18. Detroit 128,209 1.3%

19. Denver 124,130 1.2%

20. Memphis 123,874 1.2%

21. Boston (Manchester) 118,544 1.2%

22. Austin 107,695 1.1%

23. Kansas City 106,751 1.0%

24. Louisville 105,539 1.0%

25. Columbus 102,646 1.0%

26. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale 101,485 1.0%

27. Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle) 100,271 1.0%

28. St. Louis 99,905 1.0%

29. Minneapolis-St. Paul 97,451 1.0%

30. Phoenix (Prescott) 91,909 0.9%

31. Greenvll-Spart-Ashevll-And 91,647 0.9%

32. Lexington 91,326 0.9%

33. New Orleans 90,419 0.9%

34. Mobile-Pensacola (Ft Walt) 86,234 0.8%

35. Cincinnati 84,286 0.8%

36. Chattanooga 76,457 0.8%

37. Huntsville-Decatur (Flor) 76,225 0.7%

38. Pittsburgh 75,908 0.7%

39. Indianapolis 75,768 0.7%

40. Baltimore 75,696 0.7%

41. San Antonio 72,630 0.7%

42. Little Rock-Pine Bluff 71,338 0.7%

43. Portland 62,334 0.6%

44. Baton Rouge 61,762 0.6%

45. Jacksonville 61,403 0.6%

46. Jackson, MISS 60,385 0.6%

47. Oklahoma City 58,802 0.6%

48. Charleston-Huntington 58,059 0.6%

49. Milwaukee 57,574 0.6%

50. Waco-Temple-Bryan 55,876 0.5%

Here are our 25 most read stories of our fourth year along with the number of unique readers for each of these articles. Again, these aren't page views -- those would be quite a bit higher -- these are the number of unique readers for each of these articles.

1. Lebron James Decapitates Haters 1,283,758

2. Andrew Harrison on Frank Kaminsky f that n 866,495

3. Tosh O Lane Kiffin Skit is Funniest Thing You Will See All Season 610,270

4. Amy Schumer Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show Katie Couric Husband Text 549,942

5. On The Confederate Flag 506,435

6. Tiger Woods Accused of Cheating With Amanda Dufner 330,650

7. Ole Miss Girl Hates LSU 185,713

8. Website Alleges Jameis Winston Shaved Points in First Half of Louisville Game 174,990

9. Kentucky vs West Virginia the Dumbest Sweet 16 Game of All Time 141,094

10. Anonymous Mailbag 138,530

The Anonymous Mailbag has officially become a huge Outkick franchise. It has the most reliable audience of anything we post. You guys can't get enough of it. 

11. The Ten Dumbest Fan Bases in America 1 The Alabama Crimson Tide 137,921

How popular is this article? It's nearly two years old and still brings in this many unique readers. 

12. Ladies Here's Kliff Kingsbury Shirtless 135,955

Here at Outkick we're big feminists. That's why our most popular objectification this year was of a shirtless man. 

13. Bubba Watson Is an Idiot and a Coward 127,523

14. The Ten Dumbest Fan Bases in America 10 the University of Tennessee 121,213

15. The 10 Dumbest Fan Bases in America 7 the Texas Longhorns 113,745

16. Mick Fanning Shark Attack Video 111,557

17. All That And a Bag of Mail 105,449

The second most reliable franchise at Outkick is the Friday mailbag. I've been doing the Friday mailbag for eight years now and in a sign of how popular the anonymous mailbag is, it's eclipsed the Friday mailbag in popularity in less than a year. 

18. 13 ways to keep your husband happy 105,409

The most successful reader submission of the year by far. 

19. The 10 Dumbest Fan Bases in America 8 the Arkansas Razorbacks 102,700

20. Oklahoma Stands Tall Against Racism Weak Against Violence 94,702

21. The Ten Dumbest Fan Bases in America 8 West Virginia 87,402

This is from two years ago. But West Virginia fans keep finding it anew and getting freshly outraged. 

22. Tennessee Fan Releases Picture of Robert Nkemdiche hitting bong on game week 85,217

23. Is ESPN a Giant Bubble About to Burst 83,818

24. Oregon Players Taunt Jameis FSU 82,408

25. ESPN Recruiting Analyst Accidentally Tweets Pornhub Video

Finally, here are our top fifty largest state markets:

1. Texas 1,173,509 11.5%

2. Georgia 919,478 9.0%

3. Tennessee 719,746 7.1%

4. Florida 624,393 6.1%

5. California 622,540 6.1%

6. Alabama 437,391 4.3%

7. Ohio 434,926 4.3%

8. Illinois 433,219 4.3%

9. New York 379,427 3.7%

10. North Carolina 320,520 3.1%

11. Pennsylvania 276,354 2.7%

12. Kentucky 256,454 2.5%

13. Virginia 224,690 2.2%

14. Michigan 216,902 2.1%

15. Louisiana 211,500 2.1%

16. Missouri 198,729 2.0%

17. South Carolina 181,461 1.8%

18. Mississippi 159,526 1.6%

19. New Jersey 158,260 1.6%

20. Washington 153,695 1.5%

21. Indiana 150,113 1.5%

22. Wisconsin 146,948 1.4%

23. Maryland 142,104 1.4%

24. Colorado 138,919 1.4%

25. Arkansas 136,533 1.3%

26. Massachusetts 125,935 1.2%

27. Arizona 109,463 1.1%

28. Minnesota 107,679 1.1%

29. Oklahoma 100,908 1.0%

30. West Virginia 95,792 0.9%

31. Iowa 83,016 0.8%

32. Kansas 75,694 0.7%

33. Oregon 72,763 0.7%

43. Nebraska 68,297 0.7%

35. Connecticut 58,559 0.6%

36. District of Columbia 55,957 0.5%

37. Utah 48,535 0.5%

38. Nevada 37,840 0.4%

39. New Mexico 24,192 0.2%

40. Idaho 21,819 0.2%

41. Hawaii 20,849 0.2%

42. Delaware 17,975 0.2%

43. New Hampshire 16,811 0.2%

44. Maine 16,079 0.2%

45. South Dakota 15,551 0.2%

46. Rhode Island 14,004 0.1%

47. Montana 13,482 0.1%

48. North Dakota 13,286 0.1%

49. Wyoming 10,560 0.1%

50. Alaska 9,151 0.1%

Once more, in all sincerity, thanks to all of you.