The Olympic Games is one of the most anticipated sporting events around the world. Despite the difficulties posed by COVID-19 – the 12-month delay to the Games, and no spectators due to the rise in Covid cases in Tokyo – the lifelong aspirations of many athletes will be realized over the next couple of weeks.
With the substantial time difference (Tokyo is thirteen hours ahead of us in North Carolina), several of the events are taking place overnight or in the early morning here in the US. However, that hasn’t stopped us from watching the first few days of competition with the usual sort of intrigue and bemusement that can only accompany the Olympics. After all, aside from the Olympics, how many other opportunities do you get to develop a fascination with competitive surfing, or become an armchair expert in archery?
As we were watching, we started to ask ourselves – out of all of them, which Olympic sport is actually the most popular in North Carolina? And furthermore, how many athletes born in North Carolina will be participating in these Games? We wanted to find out.
Our Methodology
We looked at Google Trends data for every Olympic sport, covering the period from the end of the last Olympic Games to the beginning of this one. Google Trends allows you to compare the relative popularity of various search terms and topics against one another.
The period covered by our analysis was August 22, 2016 to July 22, 2021. The rankings are derived from the average weekly Trends score over the period of the analysis.
For this analysis, we used a filter to ensure only data applicable to North Carolina was included.
We’ve also added notes for any athletes born in North Carolina, so you can keep tabs on their progress throughout the Olympics! If we’ve missed anyone, please email us at info@trueboostdigital.com so we can update the list.
Olympic Sports (ranked by popularity in North Carolina)
Given the widespread popularity of the NBA, it is perhaps unsurprising that basketball came out on top! And there’s a good chance it will stay that way in the future – according to Google Trends, basketball is about 150% more popular in North Carolina than the silver medalist on this list, soccer. So unless American football or NASCAR win approval for a future Olympic schedule, the dominance of basketball looks set to continue…
Remember, if we missed any NC athletes from the list, email info@trueboostdigital.com so we can make the necessary updates.
We wish all athletes – and particularly those who are originally from North Carolina – the best of luck for the next couple of weeks in Tokyo!