The Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens aren’t just two of the long-serving NHL franchises, but they’re also two of the most searched teams on Google.
Nate Silver and Ritchie King of fivethirtyeight.com posted an article Thursday that displayed data on most searched teams per sport on Google from 2004-2014.
According to the article, the data is taken from Google Trends and is based on searches worldwide for each team. To understand the numbers in the article, here’s how they explained it:
“The figures listed are relative to the league average. The Atlanta Braves’ popularity, for example, is listed as 1.14, which means that they are searched for 1.14 times as often as the average MLB club.”
In the NHL, it was no surprise that the Canadiens and Maple Leafs topped the list. According to the data, the Canadiens ranked first with a score of 2.94 over the past decade while Toronto was second was 2.71. The Vancouver Canucks, (2.27), the Calgary Flames (1.30), and the Edmonton Oilers (1.14) all ranked in the top 10 on the list. Winnipeg and Ottawa ranked just outside the top 10.
The Toronto Blue Jays and Toronto Raptors ranked right in the middle for their respective leagues as well. The Blue Jays were the 14th-most searched MLB team (0.79) on Google while the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs topped the list. The Raptors were 11th in the NBA rankings, just behind the Cleveland Cavaliers, with a score of 0.95. As expected, the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, and Miami Heat were the most searched teams in the league.
In the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys were the most popular team. They topped the list as they have been searched 2.4 times more than the league average team. That wasn’t as big as the league leaders in hockey (Canadiens), baseball (Yankees) and basketball (Lakers). The Jaguars ranked last with a rating of 0.4.
