Stats abuse, part 1

Abuse of statistics is a favourite past-time of the press. Moreover, the same cliches keep coming up again and again. Courtesy of BBC Sport, here is one of my favourites:

Boxing promoter Frank Maloney reckons it [Ultimate Fighting Championship] will have "15 minutes of fame", yet it is the fastest-growing spectator sport in the United States.

Any new sport, or new anything for that matter, is almost bound to be growing faster than more established competitors. This blog is definitely amongst the fastest growing in the web: it has grown by a whopping 33% since yesterday. While the BBC will need a few years before it can increase the volume of its online content by as much, they somehow don't seem to be losing much sleep over it.