A look at the influence of Deion Sanders
When I first applied to CU Boulder, I never thought I would experience a game day where you could feel the energy of a winning team. I like my fair share of football, but I never was a diehard fan. Up until it was announced we got Deion Sanders as our head coach for the football team. I was so excited to feel a gameday vibe at Boulder. Gamedays had always been fun but the chance of winning and the hype around his presence is electric.
With such a spotlight on Deion Sanders (that even Kenan Thompson did an impression of him on SNL), there must be more and more people looking at the famous athlete’s Wikipedia page. Deion Sanders is a part of so many major sports history moments that a lot of people don’t know about. Just recently, I found out about the day that he played an Atlanta Braves World Series game and an Atlanta Falcons Football game. He is an incredibly talented athlete with so many lives lived already.
I wanted to go over the views on his Wikipedia page in the last month and also in the previous month before that (September and October). The graph below shows the line chart for the past month starting October 12. Personally, I believe the line chart isn’t as effective as the bar chart which we will cover later. In this project as well, I experimented with what charts would convey the exact message I wanted to send. This line chart shows the rise and fall of his views based on each game. The most amount of views, based on the chart, landed on October 14th, the day after the Stanford game and arguably the toughest loss of the season. The views of his page were close to 60,000 (a steep decline after September). Everyone thought that they had this game but they didn’t. It was shocking and upsetting and was, in my opinion, the downfall of the hype around Deion Sanders as a coach.
However, my opinion really isn’t just an opinion. The numbers even show a decline of fewer searches even after the UCLA game. We lost again, however, the hype was declining because of how often we were losing. And after such a historic loss like Stanford, why even bother keeping up with the famous coach if losing was now the normal just like it has been in other seasons?
The other month I looked at was September where the Primetime hysteria was in full swing. This one was much more interesting. My favorite part was the highest amount of views (over 650,000 views on his Wikipedia) which was September 17th, after the tense Colorado State game. I will never forget being in those stands and staying for the double overtime. When the Buffs finally won after so much back and forth, the stadium and campus were electric that week. We had pulled a win that, while mostly guaranteed, was an incredible game to watch. It was covered by tons of news media outlets and showed that the CU Football team was turning a new leaf.
The bar chart I definitely preferred over the line chart. While the bar chart was a little more cluttered and didn’t flow as well, I felt I got a more accurate portrayal of what views landed on which days. Plus as seen above, the decline in the Primetime hysteria is so much more apparent and detailed on a bar chart. I like that kind of detail, especially as someone who wants to go into the data visualization field. His page being viewed so many times over this time period is fascinating to analyze as it shows his fame and glory.
While we have been on a losing streak, this football season has been more fun than anything I could’ve hoped for. We were 10–1 during the 2022 season, so anything better than that is incredible. The student section and fan base around Deion still remain, at least here in Boulder. While the nation might’ve let the hype pass, the CU students will still, every Friday or Saturday, be at Folsom Field screaming and cheering for our favorites.
