the buzz log
Ochocinco to Twitter at Games
Chad Ochocinco of the Cincinnati Bengals has announced plans to Twitter from the sidelines and locker room during the upcoming NFL season. Here's hoping his tweets will be more entertaining than his team. The woeful Bungles were 4-11-1 in 2008.
Filed under: NFL
Super Bowl Search Showdown
OK, so the Arizona Cardinals aren't exactly the most popular team in the NFL. And it ain't like the Steelers play in a media Mecca like New York or Chicago. Even now, with the Super Bowl less than a week away, the Dallas Cowboys are still the most popular NFL team in Search.
But on Sunday, it's gonna be all about the Cardinals and the Steelers. We took a look at the data from the past seven days and found big differences in the popularity of the players, coaches, cheerleaders, and even logos. Here's a summary on who's winning the online battle.
| Super Showdown | |||
| Pittsburgh Steelers | Arizona Cardinals | The Winner Is... | |
| Team's Rank in Search | Among the top 800 overall searches | Among the top 1,300 overall searches | The yellow and black have a significantly larger online fan base. Somewhere Jack Lambert is smiling. |
| Most Popular Player | Troy Polamalu | Kurt Warner | The Cardinals QB has more than four times as many searches as the long-haired Polamalu. Score one for the crew cuts. |
| Give Us a "C!" | Searches for "steeler cheerleaders" are on the rise. Interesting considering the Steelers don't have cheerleaders. | Arizona's rah-rah squad inspires a slew of related queries for "cardinals cheerleader photos" and "cardinals cheerleaders calendar." | Real trumps imaginary. Advantage: Arizona. |
| Most Unfortunate Related Search | Pittsburgh Steelers Beanie Baby | Arizona Cardinals dinner plates | It's close. Too close. |
| Most Popular Jersey | Ben Roethlisberger's #7 is the top Steeler jersey. | All-world wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald has plenty of fans. | Big Ben's jersey is bigger in Search. But just barely. |
| Most Popular Logo | People want to know the story behind the Steelers logo and why it's only on one side of the helmet. | Searches on the Cardinal logo are also popular. Perhaps people are looking for tattoo ideas? | Pittsburgh's logo has the slight edge in Search. If only more folks knew what it meant. |
Filed under: NFL, Super Bowl
Meet Matt Cassel
Tom Brady's season-ending knee injury wasn't just big news for fantasy football players, it was huge. As soon as word hit the Web, armchair GMs turned their attention to Brady's backup—some guy named Matt Cassel.
Lookups on "matt cassel" surged into breakout status the day of Brady's injury, and then jumped an additional 59% on Monday. Folks quickly learned that the unknown quarterback played college ball at USC and was drafted in the seventh round in 2005. Yahoo! Sports reports that before Cassel made the NFL, he was best known as being a hero in the 1994 Little League World Series. For the record, the New York Times points out that Cassel hasn't started a "meaningful game" since high school.
And yet, despite the lack of experience, blogs like Bleacher Report are reporting that Cassel is now a "must-add" to any fantasy football roster. The Patriots are still stacked and Cassel is the likely starter for the rest of the season.
CNBC reports that Brady's injury could shift $150 million in fantasy football winnings from "those who had Brady to those who didn't." Only time will tell if fantasy football glory—and the pool of money that often comes with it—awaits those who put their faith in some guy named Matt Cassel.
Herschel Walker Speaks Out
Over the course of a glittering athletic career, running back Herschel Walker shattered records, racked up yards, and generally left everyone behind him in the Astroturf. Now, he's broken another kind of precedent. In a new book and in interviews, he's revealed that he suffers from the mental illness dissociative identity disorder or "DID." Since renamed, the disease was once called multiple personality disorder.
Yesterday, on "Good Morning America" and "Nightline," the legendary footballer talked of how he doesn't remember winning the Heisman Trophy in 1982 and when he eventually came to realize that he has at least a dozen alter egos. "Breaking Free," a memoir recounting his struggles with the disease, will publish later this week.
News of the Hall of Famer's condition has swept the Web. Searches for his name logged a massive gain yesterday, registering today as a breakout mover and maintaining a steady grip on the top hourly searches module in Buzz. By the end of the athlete's media tour on Monday, interest in "dissociative identity disorder" and "multiple personality disorder" had more than doubled.
In Buzz, a slew of popular articles have covered Walker's revelations. A Yahoo! Sports story describing his condition has attracted the most votes. A post from PhillyBurbs.com connects Walker's disease to head trauma in football. "A skeptic has to ask," the Philadelphia blogger writes, "How much of this is actually a lifelong disorder or a result of years of football?"
As for the commonly held perception that DID is "bogus," the ex-Cowboy responds: "That's the reason America is beautiful. Everyone's entitled to their opinion." Walker also says that "he hopes to educate the public and break down stereotypes about this disorder." Judging by Buzz, he's well on his way.
Filed under: NFL, Mental Health
Super Bowl: Believe the Hype
The Super Bowl wasn't a high scoring affair, but the absence of action didn't slow the searches.
As the Giants pulled off a shocking victory over the no-longer-undefeated Patriots, interest in the players, the halftime show, the cheerleaders, the national anthem singer, the commercials, the referees, the coin toss, the announcers, the odds, the celebrities in attendance, and, oh yeah, the game all soared in Search.
Despite our best efforts (see above), it's impossible to list every "super" search. So instead, we'll answer a few burning questions from the big game...
Between Tom Brady and Eli Manning, who drew the most buzz?
Tom Brady in a walk. The Pats' dashing QB came up short on the field, but he was more than twice as popular as young Eli in Search.
Which commercial stirred the most searches?
Too soon to tell, but we predict either Budweiser or Justin Timberlake takes the title. The talking baby who spit up all over himself was too disturbing to draw online interest.
Oddest related search?
Considering it's the day of the big game, we found lookups on "super bowl tickets" to be a bit far fetched.
Most shocking search trend?
Believe it or not, women actually searched on "super bowl" a bit more than the guys did. That's an upset almost as shocking as the one that happened on the field...
Filed under: NFL, Super Bowl
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nidal Malik Hasan | Breakout! |
| 2 | Fort Hood Shooting | Breakout! |
| 3 | Tyrannosaurus Rex | Breakout! |
| 4 | Fort Hood | 43518% |
| 5 | Tropical Storm Ida | 4377% |
| 6 | Willie Aames | 3325% |
| 7 | Shannon Dedrick | 3299% |
| 8 | Gretchen Rossi | 2702% |
| 9 | Epic Mickey | 2583% |
| 10 | Lee Harvey Oswald | 1907% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Danica Patrick | +194 | 207 |
| 2 | Fort Hood | +185 | 185 |
| 3 | Angelina Jolie | +114 | 164 |
| 4 | Rihanna | +39 | 157 |
| 5 | New York Yankees | +54 | 154 |
| 6 | Alicia Keys | +139 | 153 |
| 7 | +1 | 153 | |
| 8 | NFL | +6 | 138 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.