On Friday afternoon, Hulk Hogan had asset valuation expert Jeff Anderson take the stand in his trial against Gawker, to discuss the impact that the wrestler’s sex tape on the website. According to Anderson, publishing part of the tape resulted in Gawker making at least $5 million more than they would have otherwise earned, and that they’re currently worth around a whopping $286 million. He also pointed out that their web traffic greatly benefited by the video, with a dramatic drop-off once it became old news. Gawker received 14.2 million unique views in the U.S. in October 2012, the month they posted the video. To compare,the following month, they had only 9.54 million unique users. That number is still up from the 7.5 million viewers from May of that year. This is particularly interesting, given Gawker’s method of focusing on unique users instead of overall page views, complete with bonus incentives for employees.
Anderson said that Gawker’s value went up by $54 million from 2012 to 2013, based on a measurement of their unique viewers, and that Hogan’s video was responsible for 28 percent of that.
Here’s CNN’s Tom Kludt with the play-by-play in what’s turned into an epic Hulk vs. Gawker matchup:
Now let’s go to the video replay:
[Screengrab via Wild About Trial]