ODI World Cup, Indian Premier League (IPL) In Top 5 Most-Read Articles On English Wikipedia In 2023
New Delhi: India’s love and curiosity for cricket is immense and it was once again visible when the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that operates Wikipedia released their annual list of the most-read English Wikipedia articles in 2023. ODI World Cup 2023 (3rd position) and Indian Premier League or IPL (4th position) were in the top 5 most-viewed articles this year.
IPL is the biggest franchise cricket league in the world and Cricket World Cup 2023 was hosted by India entirely for the first time. 7 articles related to India have featured in the top 25 list and this is also the first time a cricket-based article managed to feature on the year-ends list.
From ChatGPT and Cricket to Barbie and Bollywood, the articles tell the story of how society at large is seeking out knowledge about the ever-changing world.
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world, but no cricket article has ever been on the Foundation’s year-end lists until now. In 2023, cricket comprised a full 16 per cent of English Wikipedia’s top 25 articles.
The top five articles of the year
1: ChatGPT – 49,490,406 pageviews
2: Deaths in 2023 – 42,666,860
3: 2023 Cricket World Cup – 38,171,653
4: Indian Premier League – 32,012,810
5: Oppenheimer (film) – 28,348,248
The articles for the ‘2023 Cricket World Cup’ (number three), hosted this year in India, and ‘Indian Premier League’ (number four) made their way into the list of the top five most-viewed articles. The top five Wikipedia articles, along with the ‘Cricket World Cup’ and ‘2023 Indian Premier League’ articles, collectively received over 116.8 million page views.
Interestingly, the ‘2023 Cricket World Cup’ page received 304 per cent more interest this year compared to its previous edition, ‘2019 Cricket World Cup’, including over 1.25 million views on the day of the tournament final. India’s Virat Kohli was awarded ‘Player of the Tournament’ in the 2023 World Cup, and he received more page views on English Wikipedia this year (over 10 million) than all those recorded for the 2019 Cricket World Cup (a little under 9.5 million).
While cricket and related articles feature prominently on the list, Bollywood isn’t too far behind, with two of this year’s major blockbuster films finding their way into the top 25.