Cricket, football, tennis, and kabaddi captured the imagination of the Indian fans in the year that’s fast coming to a close.
Here's a look at which sports and events hogged the most interest globally, whether they were India-based leagues or international tournaments (team and individual events).
Cricket
Very much a cricket-crazy nation yet, the Indian Premier League (IPL), the ICC Champions Trophy and later in the year, the ICC Women’s World Cup were among the most searched sporting events in India in 2017.
2017 began with fans looking forward to the 10th season of the IPL, looking up the schedule, the tournament’s history and seeking to know more about the players involved in the spot-fixing scandal. Then, as April neared and the season kicked off, the focus shifted to keeping track of the scores and the points table.
Howrah (100), Bengaluru (85), Delhi (70), Hyderabad (65), and Mumbai (65), in that order, were the cities which dominated the search interest.
The ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 gathered unprecedented interest from the entire cricketing fraternity and this tournament encouraged the fans in the country to tune in and keep track using the internet as well. June and July were the months when Indians immersed themselves the most, with India’s run to the final and it beating the defending champion Australia in the semi-final forming the foremost reason.
The IPL (the most searched sporting event of the year) and ICC Champions Trophy were No. 1 and No. 2 in terms of search interest, while the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup (11th edition) came ninth on a list of 10.
Football
The FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017, which India was a proud host of, and the fourth season of the India’s own football league (Indian Super League (ISL)) gathered the utmost interest among the fans.
Not surprisingly, the football cities (and states) in the country - namely Manipur (100), Meghalaya (95), Nagaland (85), Goa (74), Kerala (62), West Bengal (48), to name a few - showed utmost interest in following the Junior football world cup, while they also exhibited the most interest in following the ISL.
The FIFA U-17 World Cup and ISL generated the seventh and tenth-most search interest in India.
Tennis
Wimbledon and US Open were the tennis Grand events that the tennis fans in India scoured the internet the most for.
The weeks and days leading up to the event and the days when these tournaments were played were when the search engines found themselves being kept busy.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands (95 US Open, 66 Wimbledon), Arunachal Pradesh (94 Wimbledon), Karnataka (69 Wimbledon, 36 US Open), and Maharashtra (53 Wimbledon, 25 US Open) were the cities other than their northeastern counterparts where the search interest reached stratospheric heights.
Wimbledon was third on the list of most searched sporting events of the year 2017, while the US Open was sixth.
Kabaddi
The fifth season of Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) was the fifth-most searched topic on google, an indication of the growing popularity of kabaddi.
Andhra Pradesh (100), Telangana (74), Dadra and Nager Haveli (59), Karnataka (50), and Puducherry (47) took the first five places in terms of the search interest.
Global search trends
Wimbledon, Super Bowl, Mayweather-McGregor Fight, Tour de France, FIFA Confederations Cup, the UEFA Champions League were among the sporting events that global sports fans searched for on the internet.
One of the headline boxing bouts, Mayweather vs McGregor fight generated the third-most search interest, with South Africans (100), Americans (98), Ghanaians (86), Filipinos (75), and Aussies (61) the most interested going by the data.
Wimbledon was the most searched sporting event of the year globally, with Australian Open coming sixth on the list, followed by the US Open (seventh). Tour de France was the fourth-most popular sporting event of the year.
Hashtags that trended
#IPL, #WWC, #CT17, #UCL, #halamadrid, and #realmadrid were among the top trending hashtags in the world of sports.
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