Top NBA Playoff Videos

June 14, 2011

Now that the NBA Finals have officially ended, we wanted to do a quick look at some of the data from the videos posted by the league during the playoffs. The two most-viewed videos of on-court action were of Chicago Bull Taj Gibson whose one-handed put-back against the Heat and dunk over Dwyane Wade were viewed a total of 770,000 times.

Fun fact: during the regular season, videos posted by the NBA with the keyword "dunk" were viewed a total of 67 million times.

Aside from dunks, some of the most popular videos on the NBA channel have been their "Top 10 Plays" lists, and below we've pulled a list of the recaps with the most-views that were posted at the end of the season:



(Ranked as of Monday afternoon. May take a moment to load in full.)

More: YouTube Trends aficionados will be interested to learn that the most viewed video the NBA channel has posted since the start of the playoffs was not a highlight, but was instead a music video created by frequent Trenders, Karmin.
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Unusual Sports: Freestyle Canoeing? Japanese King of the Hill?

June 09, 2011

YouTube has always been a place where unknown sports/activities shine, and lately two unusual ones have seen a rise in interest.

The first is a capture the flag type game called Bo-Taoshi from Japan, wherein players compete for possession of a pole. The game, which is popular among cadets, has been documented in YouTube videos that have now drawn hundreds of thousands of views from around the world:

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)



A second that seen some increased viewership after being featured on Deadspin and pop culture blogs is Freestyle Canoe, in which "many FreeStylers paddle to music making an expressible, interpretive art form." Another activity that's better seen than explained, freestyle canoeing competitions have been documented on YouTube for some time, but it's just lately that new interest has cropped up:

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

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Big in Europe: 75-Year-Old Soccer Star

May 31, 2011

One of the Most Viewed videos today in the Netherlands has also been very popular in next-door neighbor Belgium, where this clip of a 75-year-old man performing an impressive feat originated. In a video said to have been shot by his grandson, Erik Lambert, a former football player, manages to kick five soccer balls against the crossbar in just 18 seconds. Something professional players had yet to accomplish.



See more of what's popular in different locations nationally and around the world with our Trends Dashboard.
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Gravity-Defying, Record-Setting Jumps

May 30, 2011

It's a big weekend so far for extreme sports video fans with two clips of record setting jumps drawing a lot of attention.

On Saturday, Jed Mildon, a BMX rider from New Zealand, set a made history with a triple backflip he pulled off at a Saturday event. Helmet-cam footage of the jump was the Most Viewed sports video on YouTube the following day and has now been seen over one million times:



Then on Sunday, Tanner Foust, a driver from Team Hot Wheels set the distance jump record for a 4-wheel-drive vehicle ahead of the Indianapolis 500. The jump begins with a 10-story drop:

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Big in Canada: Canucks Anthem

May 26, 2011

On Tuesday night, the Vancouver Canucks earned their ticket to the NHL's Stanley Cup Finals, now one hockey fan is trying to earn the "unofficial anthem" title for his Canucks inspired parody.

Earlier this month, we chronicled how Bruno Mars' video for "Lazy Song" had become one of April's most-viewed videos. Now, Philbert Simon, a YouTube "one-man band" from Canada, has created a version specifically for Canucks fans that's become the Most Shared and Most Viewed video in Canada today, according to our Trends Dashboard.



You can compare that parody with the original version from Bruno Mars below:



Related: NFL Playoffs Mean More NFL Fan Anthems
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'Lacrosse' Searches on the Rise

May 19, 2011

Likely thanks to two popular clips, searches for the word "lacrosse" on YouTube have been -- relatively -- at their highest point in recent years. Two weeks ago, a Washington D.C.-area high school lacrosse player hit a full-field "miracle" shot that quickly went viral and has since picked up over 1.7 million views to become one of the most viewed lacrosse videos of all time on YouTube.

This week, a trick play from the University of Maryland also drew a ton of attention probably contributing to the continued rise in searches for the sport. As you can see in the chart below, there's a general swelling in relative searches during the regular season each year, but there's been an abnormal spike this week.

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Most-Viewed: High School Soccer Set-Piece

May 18, 2011

This free kick misdirection used by Bryant High School against Conway High School in Arkansas has quickly become one of the most popular sports clips of the week. The vidoe was featured on Yahoo! Sports' Prep Rally blog Monday and has drawn over 700,000 views in two days, becoming one of the most-viewed clips in nearby cities like Memphis as well as nationally.

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Big in the Netherlands: Ajax Trophy Drop

May 16, 2011

The most popular video in the Netherlands today is this footage of the Ajax soccer team's victory celebration through Amsterdam on Sunday. In particular, it's goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg that's drawing all the attention for his dropping of the Eredivisie championship trophy from atop the team's bus. (He appears to have gotten tangled up in some powerlines.)

This makes him just another professional soccer player to drop a championship trophy recently. So far, Stekelenburg's drop has been seen roughly 400,000 times in this clip alone.



See more of what's popular in different locations nationally and around the world with our Trends Dashboard.
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The 10 Most Viewed NBA Plays of the Season

April 25, 2011

With the NBA playoffs now in full swing, we thought we'd look back at the trends of the 2010-2011 NBA regular season and the highlights that drew the most views on the NBA channel.

If you've been following the game this season, it won't come as a surprise that Blake Griffin was the biggest driver of interest in NBA clips this season. The LA Clippers forward -- and his incredible dunks -- make up 5 of the top 6 videos overall posted by the NBA this season. (The only other big name that was able to make it in that top range was Justin Beiber, whose highlights from the All Star weekend celebrity game came in at #4.)

All Star festivities drew a lot of attention on YouTube this season, with NBA videos being viewed 20 million times that week. Overall, NBA videos were viewed over 160 million times during the regular season. Below, we removed compilations and All Star weekend clips to discover the top 10 most viewed plays of the year:



(May take a moment to load.)

More NBA coverage on Trends: Who's the Most Popular NBA Player on YouTube?
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On the Rise in Cleveland: BW Trick Shots

April 04, 2011

Today feels like YouTube Trends "trick shot day." The trick shot trend of college athletes posting their reels of unbelievable baskets, goals, etc is nothing new on YouTube, but really kicked into full gear in February when UConn's Johnny McEntee helped propel interest in "trick shots" to arguably the highest point it's ever been.

But like many good trends, we're still seeing more and more of these clips pop up that see a lot of local popularity. Take today's example from Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio where basketball players put together a montage that's appearing on Cleveland's Most Shared list:



See more of what's popular in different locations nationally and around the world with our Trends Dashboard.
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What Are Butler, UConn Fans Watching?

Tonight, the UConn Huskies will play the Butler Bulldogs for the NCAA National Championship, bringing to a close 2011's March Madness. Today, each school -- of course -- has its own hip hop parody fan song floating around (see "Kemba Walker" and "The Show Goes On"). What's popular among these team's fans so far today?

UConn Campus Reaction:Are You a Dawg?


Bonus: Meet the quadruplet Bulldog fans.

Meanwhile, the scene in Virginia Saturday night is also drawing some attention, with numerous videos of the Richmond SWAT team confronting "rioting" VCU fans in the street with shields and tear gas (contains some profanity):


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Big in Richmond: The Most Excited Fans in America?

March 28, 2011

Before the start of the NCAA tournament, the chances of the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams making the Final Four were about 820 to 1. After an unlikely victory Sunday, the 11-seeded team did just that, and the excitement was not exactly lost on their fans back home.

We looked at the Most Shared videos today in Richmond, VA for a glimpse at the scene following the local team's defying-the-odds success against powerhouse Kansas. Here are four of the many many clips that have been posted in the past 24 hours:




The VCU athletics department has also posted some behind-the-scenes clips.

See more of what's popular in different locations nationally and around the world with our Trends Dashboard.
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NBA's All-Star Weekend: Griffin and Bieber

February 22, 2011

NBA highlight videos now regularly appear among our Most Shared on YouTube and so it was not surprising to see a rise in YouTube activity around this weekend's All-Star festivities.

Videos on the NBA's YouTube channel were viewed over 5 million times on Sunday, the biggest spike in views ever for the league's channel. The biggest star of the weekend was definitely Blake Griffin, who's drawn a huge YouTube following this season with his regular, highlight-ready in-game dunks, a phenomenon we examined at the start of the new year. Griffin took home the crown from the ever-popular dunk contest Saturday night after leaping over a Kia for the winning jam.

Griffin's clips drew the most overall views of any player -- over 2.62 million views total -- though, there was one person whose video could draw more views than even the NBA's most exciting player on All-Star weekend...

The highlight reel of Justin Bieber's Celebrity All-Star game performance drew over 1.12 million views, the most of any NBA All-Star Game video thus far. Both Griffin and Bieber are among the most searched celebrities on YouTube in their respective fields, sports and music. Here's how the five most-viewed All-Star videos stack up as of Tuesday afternoon:



Kid's got a pretty good crossover. (Click graph to view each video.)
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Trendy Rugby Videos: New Zealand vs Australia

February 18, 2011

It's not unusual to see two sports videos appear among our Trending Videos. It is unusual for those two videos to be rugby videos, which was the case this week. Also interesting is the fact that one is a direct parody of the other.

Last week, New Zealand's national team, the All Blacks, released a summer skills video that drew nearly half a million views. This week, the Waratahs of New South Wales, Australia released a mocking "skills video" of their own that's also drawn a big audience. Compare the two below.

All BlacksWaratahs


It's been a big week for sports "trick shots." Learn why here.
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Big in Connecticut: Trick Shot Quarterback

February 09, 2011

Back in 2010, we spotted a number of "trick shot" videos coming in from basketball players at top college programs like Duke, Syracuse, and Ohio State. They were pretty impressive and drew quite a few views. But now Connecticut quarterback Johnny McEntee has made an incredible compilation of his own, football-style.

The video is the Most Viewed clip in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut right now. And is one of a few college sports clips drawing lots of local popularity today (see: Kansas).

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Inside YouTube Search: Super Bowl Ads After the Game

February 07, 2011

Rather than our usual "Inside YouTube Search" feature this morning, we're digging into the top video search trend of the past 24-hours: commercials from last night's Super Bowl.

In the two hours immediately following the game, some ads saw huge spikes in search interest, the clear top two being Best Buy's commercial with Justin Bieber and Ozzy Ozborne and the Chrysler commercial starring Eminem.

There appeared to be the most interest in celebrity or Hollywood-driven ads right after the game ended, but this morning, there's been increased interest in the quirky, funny, unique ads we often think of when we think of when we think of Super Bowl commercials. It is worth noting, however, that the morning's spikes are not as high.

Here is a list of the top ad-related rising searches from yesterday and today:

Two hours after the game:
This morning:
What ad from prior to 2011 saw the biggest spike? Mean Joe Green Coke commercial from 1979.

Stay tuned later today for a breakdown on the viewing numbers for the top ads. You can watch all the ads here.
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Your Super Bowl Week Trends: 'Black and Yellow,' 'Teach Me How to Raji'

January 31, 2011

Whether or not Wiz Khalifa's "Black and Yellow" anthem was specifically targeted at the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team's Super Bowl run has definitely helped drive more views to the music video for the song, which, as we examined, spurred a number of popular imitations. A quick look at the data shows that there's definitely been a steady rise in daily views as the season has progressed.

Those large spikes you see in the past month coincide with weekend days. You can mouse-over the dots to see how big events this season affected viewership:



There are a number of music videos that have grown popular in Green Bay as well, though none of them are by artists as mainstream as Wiz Khalifa and would mostly be considered parody songs. But it seems a new dance trend might also be brewing up in Wisconsin heading into the Super Bowl thanks to a recent 4th-quarter touchdown by lineman B.J. Raji.

Creating videos for the dance -- which combine's Raji's celebration with the music from one of 2010's biggest dance-trends, the "dougie" -- seems to be gaining a little popularity among Packer fans this week. We've pulled together a playlist of those clips below, including one from University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, which is one of the Most Shared/Viewed videos in Milwaukee today.



  • Want more? Stay on top of the Most Shared videos in both cities all week leading up to the big game using our Trends Dashboard here.
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NFL Playoffs Mean More NFL Fan Anthems

January 17, 2011

The AFC and NFC title games are now locked and we're, as expected, seeing a surge in popularity for fan music videos like the Jets' "Rex's Gang Green" or the Bears' "Bearin Down Da Song."

The biggest fan-anthem of the 2010-2011 season has definitely been rapper Wiz Khalifa's ode to the city of Pittsburgh, "Black and Yellow," which inspired numerous remix videos for teams all over the country. Remakes of the song have not just been limited to the NFL though; we also spotted them for baseball and plenty of colleges. (A Northwestern version produced by Tom Hanks' son, Chet Haze, also recently drew a lot of attention.)

The Green Bay Packers seem to have the most robust fan-anthem-scene, with the two "Black and Yellow" parodies included below as well as this new original anthem and the heavily shared "Feelin so Fly Like a Cheesehead," which has been viewed nearly 300,000 times. The Jets and Bears have their own versions of the Khalifa song.

Green and White
Blue and Orange

Green and Yellow (J-Byrd)Green and Yellow (Go Pack Go)


As for the original, "Black and Yellow" still has by far the most views with 24 million and has seen steady growth in daily popularity heading toward the NFL playoffs -- as demonstrated in the chart below.

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Who's the Most Popular NBA Player on YouTube?

January 07, 2011

The NBA has seen a big surge in views this year to its YouTube channel, thanks, in big part, to LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin. Last season, the NBA drew 73.9 million views. So far this year they've nearly matched that with 61.4 million views and almost roughly four months left in the season.

Griffin, who's best known for his crowd-electrifying dunking abilities, is the fastest rising search among NBA players, and, globally, the fastest rising search on YouTube since September associated with the term "highlights" is "Blake Griffin" ("Michael Vick" is #2). He's also the top search associated with "dunk," obviously, since he's done it so much that, by the end of November, the league already had enough clips to assemble a top 10 highlight reel.

In roughly the past month or so, the NBA has posted 17 videos with Griffin's name in the title. Lebron James, who's one of the most searched NBA players overall, was featured 14 times. For the 2010-2011 season, the top three most-watched NBA videos are Griffin clips. (John Wall of the Wizards has also been heavily searched, but he has his own dance.)

The sharpest spike came after his performance in a November game against the Knicks, but we're likely to see another spike in February as Griffin was just officially announced among the competitors for this year's All-Star dunk contest.



(Oh, and here's another one from yesterday.)
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Top Sports Videos of 2010

December 13, 2010

On YouTube, the last 12 months in sports brought everything from small-town plays to major global sporting events, and we watched as the videos below exploded in popularity in the United States.

The bell-weather sporting event of the year was undoubtedly the World Cup in South Africa, where Spain finally lived up to their promise, football (aka soccer) aficionados worldwide were treated to a spectacularly speculative take on the game and its consequences in a series of ads by Nike, and American fans everywhere delighted in a last-minute, game-saving goal by Landon Donovan.

While the pros get their share of love on our site, amateur athletes got their chance to shine, too, whether it was must-be-seen-to-be-believed plays in football, soccer and baseball and basketball. In the category of "Awesomely Miscellaneous/Miscellaneously Awesome," trick shot artists reached new heights, while underwater base jumper Guillaume Nery reached, well, new depths. And while we're unclear on what exactly it is that these guys do, we still say: well played.



(It may take a moment for the chart to load in full.)

• Check out the rest of our 2010 lists for the top 10s in:

SportsNewsTrailersParodyNon-profit
Tech CultureHip-hopVehiclesAnimalsMost Discussed
Short FilmsPeopleInternational musicHolidays

Andrew Bangs, YouTube Sports Manager
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