I don't know how accurate those numbers are at any given time. They seem awfully high to me. There's been a lot of spammers signing up of late; my webmaster has been on the site trying to make it more difficult for them to register. There's also a lot of search bots even though most of the search engines censor CF or at best relegate us way back in the results when someone does a relevant search.
I go by the number of views individual threads receive as the best way to gauge traffic. The thread about the new NHL season is over three weeks old but still has just 378 views as I write this. That's because there's so little posting about hockey and some other sports, and apparently football easily remains "king" when it comes to the interest of most who visit here.
The NFL weekly threads are noticeably up in views this season. Week 1 has 23k views, Week 2 has 18k, Week 3 has 24k, Week 4 has 19k views, etc. That's a lot more than in previous years.
The 2024 NFL Draft thread has 209k views currently, the 2025 Draft thread has 104k. Both keep growing over time. By contrast, the 2005 NFL Draft thread has 21k views after 20 years. A number of football and Happy Hour threads have gone over 100,000 views, some well over. "We are Living in a Cartoon" is approaching 700,000 views.
So we have an audience, a growing following in spite of nearly a decade of search engine censorship, but there seems to be a lot more lurkers than previously when as always what's needed is posting because that's what generates interest and keeps people coming back for more.