Eagles’ Fan Interest Hits Low During Lockout

A new look at search data provided by Google shows local interest, at least on the Internet, has hit rock bottom in the Philadelphia Eagles, while the Phillies keep pushing to pass the Eagles as the area’s biggest pro sports team.

In April, we wrote about how Google Insights, a free tool used by marketers, showed historic trends about how people used Google to get information about the Eagles and the Phillies.

Link: Read April Article On Eagles Vs. Phillies

In overall terms, the Eagles were still the top dog in Philadelphia, but not by much, as the Phillies generated a huge amount of interest in April.

Meanwhile, the NFL remains locked in a labor struggle that has kept teams from signing free agents, making trades and running minicamps - all activities that generate fan interest.

But in early June, it looks like the Phillies have tied the Eagles, in fan interest, during the past year. Both teams have a Google Insights search score of 33 between May 2010 and May 2011.

To come up with that number, Google looks at the most-popular search in the past year (the Eagles playoff run), gives that event a value of 100 and compares all other searches to it. So general interest in the Phillies and Eagles is 33 percent of the interest in the NFL playoffs.

Click Graphic For Updated Google Insight Numbers

But the Eagles-Packers playoff game wasn’t an ordinary game – it generated huge TV ratings and online interest. Since then, local interest in the Eagles - on the Internet -  has disappeared, with the exception of the three days of the NFL draft.

Google has tracked its search data since January 2004 and the past month’s numbers for the Eagles are the lowest since then.

The Eagles’ score in the past four weeks has been a 2, meaning current interest in the Eagles is 2 percent of interest in the biggest local sports event since 2004 – the Super Bowl loss to the Patriots.

In the past month, the Phillies’ score is an 8 for the same time period.

Meanwhile, the Phillies keep on rolling along, with a Google score of 35 for the first week of June 2011 (based on searches since last June), compared with 30 for last June.

And in May, interest in the Phillies was at the same level here as last September’s playoff run.

The NFL remains in talks with players as it tries to come up with a collective bargaining agreement before training camp starts in late July.

By The Numbers is a regular MyFoxPhilly feature that looks at key Philadelphia issues behind publicly available numbers and research.
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