I recently came across an intriguing question in a conversation with an SEO and analytics leader at a digital media company: Do NFL teams that are either really bad or really good get more search traffic compared to the mediocre ones? The theory is that extreme performance—whether great or terrible—draws more attention than middle-of-the-road results. So, I decided to put this to the test using data from Google Trends and NFL win-loss records.
In this video, I walk you through how I gathered the data, processed it in Gigasheet, and used Python to automate parts of the data collection. While Google Trends is easily accessible, finding reliable APIs for NFL win-loss data was a challenge. Fortunately, I found a workaround, and I’ll share how we pulled that data. Plus, the Python script I used is available on our GitHub if you want to try it out.
Here’s the process I followed:
For now, the early results are inconclusive, but I plan to revisit this analysis in a few weeks to see if patterns emerge as the season continues. Be sure to stay tuned for that follow-up!
Want to dive into the data yourself? Check out the full video and grab an account on Gigasheet.