Sports and esports

Your Traffic Reports for the weeks of June 26 – July 2, and July 3–9, 2016:

The dominant topic in Wikipedia traffic the week of June 26 to July 2 was sports, and more particularly football, with UEFA Euro 2016 in the top spot for third straight week. And Iceland's improbable team (#22 in the WP:TOP25) victory over England in UEFA Euro 2016 put that country's article at #5. Lionel Messi's (#4) defeat at the Copa América (#12) final, and his subsequent retirement announcement, was also big news. In other news, the hangover from Brexit (#25) kept the European Union (#9) in the top ten for a second week, and put Boris Johnson (#13) and Theresa May (#17) on the Top 25 as well. Game of Thrones also merits a mention, taking slots #2 and #3, and its season finale episode article at #18.

Moving on to the week of July 3–9, sports dominated again this week, with the traditional return of Wimbledon joining the lead-up to the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament, the latest UFC event, and an unexpected team change for an NBA superstar. But it was a sport of an entirely modern kind, Pokemon Go, that led the pack, and before you ask, yes, Pokemon is an esport. Traditional summer distractions such as movies and television round out the list, with the inclusion of politicians Donald Trump and Andrea Leadsom after the Top 10 to remind us (barely) of the real world.

For the full top-25 lists (and our archives back to January 2013), see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles every week, see WP:MOSTEDITED. For the most popular articles that ORES models predict are low quality, see WP:POPULARLOWQUALITY.

June 26 – July 2

The ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	UEFA Euro 2016	1,590,000	A third straight week in the top spot, though with less than half as many views as last week. The Round of 16 commenced on June 25, and the quarter-final rounds were underway when this weeks' report closed July 2. The final four teams were Portugal, Wales(!), Germany, and France, with the next match on July 6.
2	Game of Thrones	1,126,688	Last week the Season 6 article was #6, while this general series article was #16 (with 730K views). Why the switch this week? No doubt it is because the season finale on June 26 (The Winds of Winter) (#18) caused more mainstream press coverage, prompting more people unfamiliar with the show to look it up on Wikipedia to see what they were missing.
3	Game of Thrones (season 6)	1,103,448	See #2. Numbers up slightly from last week.
4	Lionel Messi	1,060,930	Up from #21 and 564K views last week. The Argentine forward and "best footballer on the planet"^TM faced Chile in the Copa America Centenario final on June 26, and lost on penalty kicks after a 0–0 draw. The 29-year-old Messi announced his retirement after the game.
5	Iceland	784,708	Views spiked on the northern island country's article on June 27 and 28. On June 27, Iceland defeated England 2–1 in their UEFA Euro 2016 Round of 16 match. But alas, Iceland fell to France on July 3 and did not make the semi-finals.
6	Pat Summitt	764,584	The longtime head coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team, who won a record 1,098 games in her tenure, died at age 64. She retired from coaching in 2012 after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Her public openness about her condition was widely admired and helped raise awareness of the disease and its impact.
7	Battle of the Somme	757,121	The 100th anniversary of the commencement of this First World War battle fell on July 1. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front. More than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in history.
8	Independence Day: Resurgence	755,170	The 20-years-later sequel to Independence Day premiered in the United States on June 24. As of July 4, its worldwide gross is $252 million; the film had a budget of $165 million. It has received mostly negative reviews, though I fully intend to see it. Down slightly from 810K views last week.
9	European Union	736,104	Views previously spiked on June 24 due to the Brexit vote, but traffic remained high (though declining each day) for this entire week as the aftermath of the vote began to be digested. Down from #3 and 1.97 million views last week.
10	Jesse Williams (actor)	720,299	At the BET Awards on June 26, this actor won a humanitarian award, and delivered a speech highlighting racial injustice, police brutality, and cultural appropriation, which drew press attention far beyond anything the BET Awards normally gets. (BET is an acronym for Black Entertainment Television, the most prominent television network targeting African American audiences.)

July 3–9

The ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	Pokémon Go	1,371,390	For most people born before the Clinton administration, Pokémon is about as comprehensible as the religious customs of some lost Pacific island or the codes and shibboleths of an ancient secret society. Which, by the way, is exactly why your kids love it so much. It's too complicated to explain quickly but the latest iteration exploded into the public mind almost overnight (it currently has more users than Tinder in the US, despite only being in release for 5 days) due to its unique, and perhaps uniquely dangerous, gameplay. Thanks to the wonders of augmented reality, Google Maps and GPS, a real-time scavenger hunt has morphed with a video game; it's everywhere you go. Hold up your iPhone to a tree, there's a Pokémon sitting in a crook, waiting to be captured and sent to the death ring, er, I mean "gym". Look down on the pavement, and there's a cute Pokémon staring up at you. And hey look! There's one swimming in that deceptively close and surprisingly deep pond! And there's one across that very busy street! Yes, Pokemon Go-related accidents have already happened, as have muggings, since the game alerts any other players to your current location. Thankfully none of this has proven fatal, though it's only a matter of time before a health official is forced to remind the general public that real people do not get extra lives.
2	Sultan (2016 film)	1,152,393	One big difference between Hollywood and Bollywood is that in Bollywood, stars still matter. And Salman Khan (pictured) rules the roost right now. His last big film, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, dominated Eid al-Fitr weekend and went on to make nearly $100 million. And now he's done it again. His latest, a wrestling drama, was also released on Eid and has taken in nearly ₹1.96 billion ($29 million) in its first six days.
3	Independence Day (United States)	1,142,261	This is the fourth US Independence Day since we started this list, which means it's time to look for patterns, and one that stands out is that while this article's numbers keep climbing year upon year, it has never been the #1 article for its week. Some have speculated that Americans already know enough about their founding holiday and don't need to look it up.
4	UEFA Euro 2016	988,687	Numbers are down slightly for the quarter- and semi-finals, which saw the darlings of the tournament (Wales and Iceland) predictably knocked out by France and Portugal. This list's timeframe ends before the 10 July final so expect numbers to shoot up again next week.
5	Juno (spacecraft)	960,161	Not all NASA missions need to be glamorous; this one, which began a slow, winding descent towards Jupiter on 4 July, won't be gracing us with grand vistas of the jewels of the Jovian realm. No: this one is hardcore, pick-to-the-cliff science. Have you ever seen a cutaway image of the inside of a gas giant? Well if not, here's one. Thing is, up until now, it's basically educated guesswork. We don't have any hard evidence of what's under those clouds. But we will, thanks to Juno, which will get the info by mapping Jupiter's gravitational field. But to do so, it has to get close. Real close. As in, close enough to be fried by Jupiter's 12,000-Chernobyls-per-second radiation belts. Needless to say, it's a tough little bugger, but its creators don't expect it to be producing useful science for more than 18 months before it's toast.
6	Nettie Stevens	896,719	This pioneering geneticist and discoverer of the XY sex-determination system got a Google Doodle on her 155th birthday on 7 July.
7	UFC 200	872,178	The latest in the mixed martial arts tournament series was held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (pictured) on 9 July. Headliner Amanda Nunes defeated Miesha Tate in the first round.
8	Serena Williams	857,452	The world women's number 1 tennis champion clinched yet another record on 9 July when she beat Angelique Kerber in straight sets to clinch her 22nd major singles title at her natural home, Wimbledon. Two more titles and she will equal Margaret Court's career record.
9	Antoine Griezmann	849,627	Olivier Giroud may have scored two goals for France in the Euro 2016 semi-final, but it was Griezmann who scored the most goals in the tournament.
10	Kevin Durant	707,764	The seven-time NBA All-Star signed with the Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors this week for a reported two-year, $54 million contract.