The champs are back on top. We got our grubby paws on the October comScore numbers and in the tighest race (we’ve seen) yet, ESPN narrowly edged Yahoo by a mere 19,000 unique visitors (22,937,000-22,918,000). This would be akin to Ben Johnson running a 9.79 in the Olmypic 100 to Carl Lewis’ 9.80. That close. Fox reclaimed the No. 3 spot from the beast that is the NFL, and spots 5-10 remained unchanged. All the particulars after the jump, plus, cricket, fantasy sports and blogs.

1. ESPN – 22,937,000 unique visitors
Nothing unusual to report besides the fact that 380,000 people went to the ESPN Shop. If we had to guess why there was a one million dropoff from the September numbers (for both ESPN and Yahoo), it would be fantasy football drafts in September.
2. Yahoo Sports – 22,918,000 unique visitors
Despite losing the top spot, Yahoo did win two categories: total page views (2,445-1,849) and average minutes per visit (8.7-6.8).
3. Fox Sports on MSM – 17,512,000 unique visitors
Mildly interesting – Scout.com defeated SI’s Fan Nation.com again, 2,143,000-1,113,000.
4. NFL Internet Group – 17,052,000 unique visitors
Kind of cool, if you run the sport: the NFL Shop is a cash cow, and brought in 1,596,000 visitors, second only to the Dallas Cowboys. The Patriots are ranked 2nd among all teams – expect that numbert to skyrocket in the coming weeks – followed by the Packers, Steelers and Colts. Last: St. Louis Rams (134,000).
5. MLB.com – 14,781,000 unique visitors
Pretty nice boost of 2.4 million uniques despite a putrid World Series.
6. College Sports TV – 7,282,000 unique visitors
Will be interesting to see if CSTV can overtake MLB.com in November and December, with college hoops starting and the Bowl season approaching.
7. AOL Sports – 7,179,000 unique visitors
8. CBS Sportsline – 6,395,000 unique visitors
9. Sports Illustrated Sites – 5,715,000 unique visitors
10. WWE – 4,782 unique visitors

A few interesting observations:

* Remember when ESPN gobbled up all things Cricket recently? It’s not only because it’s a worldwide sport – viewers spent an incredible 27.3 minutes per visit on www.Cricinfo.com. This is an astonishing number, surpassed by only two sports sites: the NCAA clearinghouse (64.2), and something called www.worldwinner.com (29.2 – it’s a site where you can go and play pool and other games on the net; now sure how that qualifies as sports, but whatever). One would think that it’s only a matter of time before ESPN – or a competitor – purchases www.cricbuzz.com, which held viewers captive for an average of 19.1 minutes. The cricket acquisition is a cunning one by ESPN – it’s simply a move to pick up eyeballs on the web.

* Fantasy Sports Ventures (the kind folks who just did our redesign) checked in at 14th – ahead of the NHL. You’d have to have been asleep for the last years to not know how large Fantasy Sports have gotten (hence the ESPN push for Matthew Berry and those characters), but we had no idea viewers spent an average of 10.8 minutes on FSV sites, whch was longer than all of the big guns in the Top 10. (Full disclosure: We recently joined their network.)

* Site to watch: UFC. It’s only 26th now (929,000) still far behind the WWE.

* We’re not exactly sure what comScore uses to measure unique visitors, but it’s nothing we’re familiar with (and we’re not even sure if you have to sign up to be counted or not). Based on our Google Analytics stats, we would rank somewhere in the 40s. Yet, two sites with much larger traffic than us, Deadspin and Pro Football talk, only rank 39th and 189th (respectively).