Super Bowling: The biggest annual event in America takes over Wikipedia viewership
The Super Bowl (#20) returns for its annual domination of this chart with Super Bowl 50 (#8) having been played on February 7, placing thirteen articles in our top 25, only slightly off last year's showing of fifteen articles. Aside from American football, the new film Deadpool takes two slots in the top 10, as did two Reddit "Today I Learned" threads. The American domination of the chart this week also saw Donald Trump high again at #4 after easily winning the Republican New Hampshire primary, and Bernie Sanders at #9 for winning the Democratic side of that contest.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
For the week of February 7 to 13, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peyton Manning | 
|
2,454,310 | .jpg) |
In what may have been his final hurrah after a long career, the American football quarterback led the Denver Broncos (#25) to a solid victory over Cam Newton (#7) and the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 (#8) on February 7. |
| 2 | Deadpool (film) | 
|
1,939,593 |  |
The Marvel Comics antihero film starring Ryan Reynolds (pictured) was released on February 12. |
| 3 | Omayra Sánchez | 
|
1,871,179 | As Reddit learned this week, a photo of this young girl, taken before she died in a volcanic eruption in Colombia (see Armero tragedy), was the World Press Photo of the Year for 1985. | |
| 4 | Donald Trump | 
|
1,504,756 |  |
Trump won the Republican New Hampshire primary for U.S. President on February 9. He roundly clobbered his opponents with over 35% of the vote. His promises of winning so well we could not not believe it have become reality, and as improbable as it once seemed, the prospect of Trump winning the party's nomination is now being taken very seriously. |
| 5 | Deadpool | 
|
1,452,087 | |
The character on which #2 is based. |
| 6 | Christopher Paul Neil |
|
1,445,649 | Reddit learned this week that Neil is a notorious pedophile known as "Mr. Swirl" or "Swirl Face" who was tracked down and arrested in 2007 after police were able to digitially "unswirl" photos of his face available online. | |
| 7 | Cam Newton |
|
1,411,026 |  |
Cam Newton, the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, lost in Super Bowl 50 (#8) to the Denver Broncos (#25), primarily because the Broncos' defense was able to shut down Newton unlike any other team had this season. |
| 8 | Super Bowl 50 |
|
1,283,341 |  |
Up from #17 and 636,927 views last week, it was played on February 7 at the Levi's Stadium outside San Francisco (pictured). Last year's Super Bowl XLIX placed fourth on this report with about 110,000 more views than this year. Personally I blame the drop on the failure to use Roman numerals this year. |
| 9 | Bernie Sanders |
|
1,272,272 |  |
The lovable democratic socialist easily won the Democratic Party New Hampshire primary over Hillary Clinton. While even some in his own party view his plans as quixotic at best and confrontational at worst, his idealism has proven catnip to disenchanted young voters. |
| 10 | List of Super Bowl champions |
|
999,486 | This list invariably pops up once a year, as Americans first scramble for facts to determine which team will win, then rush back to see if their dream/nightmare came true. |
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