I created a chart for the popularity of the Aki Basho 2018 as well as the popularity of the Kyushu Basho 2018 on Reddit.com/r/sumo, as measured by the number of daily discussion thread views and comments. Unfortunately, between this basho and the last one, Reddit disabled the feature to view the number of post views. Nevertheless, I still created a chart for the popularity of the Hatsu Basho 2019 via the number of daily post comments, and I overlaid it with the popularity of the Kyushu Basho 2018. Click here to see a full-sized image of the chart!
Of course, the peak of popularity occurred on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th days, which were the days that yokozuna Kisenosato was competing in his final matches as well as retiring. Then, a huge dip occurred until day 11, which was Hakuho’s first loss of the basho. The discussion remained lively on days 12 and 13, which were again days that Hakuho lost and eventually withdrew from the basho. I am surprised that we didn’t see more of a peak on Day 15, but I guess some fans already assumed the outcome.
I also included four asterisks, which were days that another post on Reddit.com/r/sumo garnered over 50 comments. Two of these discussed Kisenosato’s retirement on day 3, one discussed Hakuho’s dominance on day 4, one discussed Ichinojo’s effort (or lack thereof) on day 10, and one discussed the Hakuho vs Mitakeumi match on day 11. On each of these days, the popularity of the basho was substantially higher but not reflected on the chart.
As you can see, the Hatsu Basho 2019 was clearly more popular than the Kyushu Basho 2018. On some days, there were three times as many comments. Most of this extra popularity was due to Kisenosato’s final matches as well as Hakuho’s performance collapse. Yokozunas clearly bring in the viewers!
If you have any comments or questions about this post, feel free to email me at NorthAmericanSumo@Gmail.com. Thanks for reading!
North American Sumo 
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