US, UK Searchers & The World Cup

The World Cup opens tomorrow. For my fellow Americans, many of whom may have
no idea that the US is in it, you might want to check out my
personal experiences living
in World Cup-mad Eng-er-land at the moment. And now the run-up to search and
soccer is starting.
Hitwise: World
Cup and Soccer Searches over at iMedia Connection covers stats from Hitwise
showing how Yahoo sent the official FIFA World Cup site the most traffic — no
surprise given Yahoo’s a key sponsor. You can also see what soccer players are
most popular among US searchers, with former women’s team player Mia Hamm
leading the pack.

I don’t see any of this data over at the Hitwise analyst
weblogs yet or in

news releases. But watch the blogs. I guarantee Bill Tancer or one of his
colleagues will jump in to do a big giant thing now, since the relatively sparse
data out there now is already getting my attention.

And another bet. If you looked for the most popular searched for football
payer based on UK data recently, it would be Wayne Rooney. A nation over here is
relieved that his toe has

healed (ok, ok, his

metatarsal) and he’ll be able to play.

Hey, I don’t need no stinkin’ Hitwise. Here’s a Google trends

chart. Just look at the spike. Here,

compare to superstar David Beckham (my claim to fame — his kid and my kid
were both in the same group that drove cars at Legoland a few years ago). The
chart also shows Theo Walcott, recently named to the team with much

amazement. Theo’s spike is nothing like Wayne’s and David hardly get it up
at all. Here’s also a

UK specific view.

Postscript: Heck, Hitwise was already moving in the UK. Heather
Hopkins has just posted UK stats here:

Wayne Rooney Injury, David Beckham Hairstyles and Peter Crouch Dance. And
while Wayne Rooney did have a spike, Peter Crouch and his robot dance seems to
have pushed that player past Rooney in terms of searches recently. Google Trends

doesn’t show that — but Google Trends doesn’t run into May, when Crouch
spike happened. Also from Hitwise PR side, a list of top footballers searched for
in the UK:

Most Searched-for World Cup Footballers Week Ending 3rd June 2006

Rank Name

1 Ronaldinho

2 Steven Gerrard

3 Peter Crouch

4 David Beckham

Resources

Analytics The 2023 B2B Superpowers Index

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5 Wayne Rooney

6 Cristiano Ronaldo

7 Frank Lampard

8 Thierry Henry

9 Ronaldo

10 Theo Walcott