I know that we have a lot of video gamers out there in our midst, myself included, and the New York Times has found some interesting data on which teams players like to select when they play online.
According to the Times, since the pre-season started and EA Sports' Madden '11 was released, online gamers have started approximately 290 million online games. . .which equates to roughly 1,200 every minute. Of the 32 National Football League teams, the data shows that the Minnesota Vikings were the second-most popular team selected in the online realm. The only team that was selected more often than the Vikings was the Philadelphia Eagles.
The least popular team to control online? The Arizona Cardinals, who were found to have been selected in approximately 1% of all online games.
As the article notes, the Vikings and Tennessee Titans both have a couple of interesting spikes. Those spikes coincide with when both teams brought wide receiver Randy Moss into the fold. A couple of other interesting ones.
-The Eagles really jumped up after Michael Vick started going nuts on the field, and especially after the 6 touchdown performance he had against the Redskins.
-The Cincinnati Bengals started out as the fourth-most popular team in the Madden universe. By the time the season was over, they were the fifth-least popular.
-The Seattle Seahawks finished as the second-least popular team on Madden, but reached their peak after their upset victory over the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs.