ESPN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL WEBSITE IS THE 2006 MARCH MADNESS ONLINE CHAMPION

George Mason's Website A Winner Off The Court

NEW YORK, April. 5, 2006 - With the University of Florida's victory on April 3, the 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball tournament finally comes to a close. While the tournament produced more than its share of upsets on the court there were two significant winners off the court as both ESPN.com Men's College Basketball website and George Mason's website saw significant increases in their market share of visits online.

According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, the ESPN.com Men's Basketball site (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb) experienced an increase in market share of visits by 77 percent among all sites compared to 2005. The figure is based on the peak week of visits in 2006 and 2005, which is the first week of the tournament ending Saturday (week ending March 18, 2006 compared to week ending March 19, 2005). When looking at daily traffic for the opening day of the tournament, ESPN.com Men's Basketball site experienced an increase in market share of visits of 155 percent on March 16, 2006 versus the 2005 opening day on March 17, 2005.

Sites that also experienced large weekly increases in market share of visits were the MSN Fox Sports College Basketball site (http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk), which increased by 77 percent for the week ending March 18, 2006 compared to the same week last year, and the NCAA Sports site (www.ncaasports.com), up 42 percent in that period. Yahoo's College Basketball site (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab), which had the largest market share in 2005 among these five sites, dipped by 7 percent compared to the previous year.

"As we analyze visits to the top college basketball sites for this year's championship, it's clear that ESPN's college basketball section was the run-away leader in market share," said Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research for Hitwise. "As is the case for George Mason University, it is also interesting to note that success on the court can significantly boost a school's brand. I would be hard pressed to find a more effective publicity engine for George Mason than their 'Cinderella' run at the championship."

The George Mason basketball team pulled off one of the most remarkable runs in NCAA Men's Basketball tournament history as the 11^th-seeded team made it all the way to the Final Four before losing to Florida on April 1. The school's website (www.gmu.edu) was also a big winner, experiencing an increase in market share of visits by 393 percent from March 26, 2006 (the day after they advanced to the Final Four) compared to March 12, 2006 (the day the team was selected to the NCAA Tournament). Accordingly the school's admissions site (http://admissions.gmu.edu) increased 151 percent the next day, March 26, 2006 compared to March 25, 2006.

For the four weeks ending April 1, 2006 the search term "george mason university" was the third most successful term driving traffic to the 'Education - Institutions' category. Before the tournament began, the term "george mason university" was ranked 182 (four weeks ending March 11, 2006).

Contact: For media inquiries or to schedule an analyst interview, please contact Matt Tatham: matt.tatham@hitwise.com (212) 380 2939

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com