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Fake war, or real sport?

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By Serendipodous

Despite the interest generated by its season finale, Game of Thrones still couldn't top the World Cup, which still dominated interest, as evidenced by the fact that this top 10 is virtually identical to last week's, just with a different dead celebrity.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation for any exclusions.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of 15–21 June, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 2014 FIFA World Cup C-class 2,506,641
While it is cold comfort to those (like me) whose home teams are already spanked and turfed, this exceptionally goal-heavy World Cup has produced some very entertaining football. Historically, this tournament has boiled down to a contest between Europe and South America, with each continent claiming 10 titles. Now, with England sent home, Spain crashing out and Italy and Portugal teetering, it seems the first South American World Cup in 36 years is favouring the home sides, with Chile, Colombia and Uruguay all storming through their first matches. But with Costa Rica coming out of nowhere to the shock and awe of everyone, could this be North America's turn?
2 FIFA World Cup Featured Article 1,337,592 The broader article on the history of the competition may have been accessed by people looking for the long view, but in truth it was probably more to do with people looking for the more specific article above.
3 Amazon.com B-Class 843,747
This article suddenly reappeared in the top 25 a few months ago after a long absence; it's always difficult to determine the reasons for the popularity of website articles (how many are simply misaimed clicks on the Google search list?) but there are at least two possibilities: first, it released its digital media player, Amazon Fire TV on April 2, and second, it is currently embroiled in a dispute with publisher Hachette that could decide whether book publishers even need to exist in the post-digital world.
4 Game of Thrones B-class 770,438
Well, that was the season finale. I half-expected it to beat the World Cup, but our users don't seem to have the crazed thirst for this show they displayed last year.
5 2010 FIFA World Cup B-Class 694,266
The current World Cup has buoyed interest in the last one, with people doubtless looking for parallels, clues for upcoming matches, or omens.
6 Game of Thrones (season 4) C-Class 577,004
This is the page with the plot synopses for each episode.
7 Casey Kasem Good Article 566,000
The legendary radio personality died this week at the age of 82. There is no American of my generation or older who would not recognize Casey Kasem's voice. He hosted the national show American Top 40 for a total of 25 years, but will probably be best known outside the US as the English voice of Shaggy Rogers, the owner of Scooby-Doo – a role he played for nearly 40 years. (That isn't his normal voice though; if you want to hear what he usually sounded like, check out his voice cameo in Ghostbusters.)
8 List of Game of Thrones episodes List 493,961
The episode list is probably used to look up air dates.
9 2014 in film List 482,811
A new entry for the list, probably in preparation for the Hollywood summer movie season.
10 2014 FIFA World Cup squads List 441,589
This is most likely the result of residents of competing countries checking out their opponents.
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