What Sports Fans Are Actually Searching For: One Month of Streaming Data

Quick answer: Five of the six MLB teams generating the most search demand on HowToWatchMyTeam.com are now on MLB Local Media instead of a traditional regional sports network. NBA playoff search volume is up roughly 170% per day since Game 1. And "Netflix baseball schedule" continues to be the single most-searched topic on the site, even though Netflix airs only a handful of MLB events per year.

When HowToWatchMyTeam.com launched a month ago, the goal was to build a single, simple answer to a question that has gotten unreasonably hard to answer: where is my team's game tonight?

The site has now been live and indexed for 30 days. In that window, Google Search Console recorded thousands of impressions across more than 2,500 unique queries from real fans. Here is what the data is showing.

The MLB Local Media teams are searching the hardest

Fourteen MLB teams no longer have a traditional regional sports network. After Diamond Sports Group's bankruptcy collapsed the Bally Sports footprint and AT&T SportsNet shut down, MLB stepped in with a centralized "MLB Local Media" product, distributed primarily through MLB.TV and the ESPN app. Fans in those markets now navigate something genuinely new every night.

The data lines up with that disruption almost perfectly.

The top six MLB teams by share of search impressions on the site over the last 30 days, in order:

1. Arizona Diamondbacks
2. San Diego Padres
3. Cincinnati Reds
4. Milwaukee Brewers
5. Cleveland Guardians
6. Chicago Cubs

Five of the top six are MLB Local Media teams. The sixth, the Cubs, is on Marquee Sports Network, which has its own well documented carriage problems. Together, those six teams account for roughly half of all MLB-related search volume on the site, despite being six of thirty MLB clubs.

The shape of the searches is what stands out. Roughly two-thirds of all impressions on the site came from queries containing the words watch, stream, channel, how, where, or what. Across hundreds of unique variants, the most common patterns are:

• "what channel is the [team] game on today"
• "how to watch [team]"
• "where to watch [team]"
• "is the [team] game on tv"

These are not the searches of fans who follow the broadcast landscape closely. They are the searches of fans who used to know the answer without having to look. The casual viewer who flipped on the local RSN for twenty years is exactly the fan who now has to Google their way to a game that starts in fifteen minutes. And casual viewers represent a huge share of any team's overall audience.

The data point that makes that clearest: the markets where the broadcast situation changed most aggressively in the last two seasons are also the markets generating the most search volume. The fans who never needed to think about this are the ones thinking about it the most.

The NBA playoffs created a measurable traffic spike

NBA playoffs began April 18. The site's search impression volume reflects that almost exactly.

Over the 21 days leading up to the playoffs, the site averaged a baseline level of daily impressions. Over the 10 days since the playoffs began, that daily average is up roughly 170%. Game 1 day, April 18, set a new single-day record at roughly four times the highest day from the entire pre-playoff window.

Put another way, the 10-day playoff window has already produced more total search volume than the prior 21 days combined.

The dynamic NBA playoffs page on the site picked up the largest share of that incoming demand. The most-searched NBA team in the window has been the Denver Nuggets, with several of the search queries phrased specifically around streaming access:

• "denver nuggets live stream"
• "denver nuggets streaming"
• "orlando magic live stream"
• "how to watch nuggets games"
• "nba playoffs 2026 first round schedule"

The "live stream" phrasing is significant. NBA playoff games air across TNT, ABC and ESPN, NBC and Peacock, and Prime Video. Fans aren't asking what channel. They're asking how to access a specific platform tonight, often by name. The fragmentation question for NBA is structurally different from MLB. It isn't "where is my game" but "how do I get into this platform without cable."

Netflix continues to confuse fans about MLB

The single most-searched topic on the site over the 30-day window was Netflix and MLB.

More than 20 unique query variants in the data set, including "netflix baseball schedule," "netflix mlb schedule," "mlb on netflix schedule," "netflix mlb 2026 schedule," "baseball netflix," and "how many mlb games will be on netflix." Combined, those variants accounted for a meaningful share of all MLB-related search demand on the site, on par with several full team fan bases.

Netflix airs a handful of MLB events per year, most notably Opening Day and the Home Run Derby. There is no Netflix MLB schedule in any meaningful sense.

But the search pattern suggests fans don't know that. After streaming Opening Day on Netflix earlier this year, a non-trivial number of fans appear to be checking back, looking for the next game. The way they phrase the searches, with words like "schedule," "games," "broadcast schedule," and "2026 schedule," implies they expect a recurring list.

This is the same pattern the rest of the data tells, just expressed through a different platform. Casual fans no longer have a stable mental model of which streaming service carries which sport. When a service runs one high-profile event, that single event creates the impression of an ongoing programming commitment, and fans search accordingly.

A few additional patterns from the month

Question-form queries dominate. Roughly two-thirds of all impressions came from queries containing the words watch, stream, channel, how, where, or what. Fans aren't researching the broadcast landscape in the abstract. They're trying to find a specific game, right now.

Demand isn't only domestic. The site received search impressions from over 100 countries in 30 days. After the United States, the largest sources were Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The baseball and basketball diaspora is hunting for US broadcast information from outside the US, a structurally different audience from the one the site was originally built for.

Mobile and desktop behave differently. Desktop generates the larger share of impressions, but mobile users click through at a meaningfully higher rate. The reasonable read is that desktop is browsing time and mobile is game time.

Topical content outperformed evergreen content. A timely post about a regional cable carriage dispute generated more clicks in the month than every evergreen platform guide combined. At least at the indexing stage, news beats reference.

What the next month looks like

The plan for May is straightforward. More content for the teams generating the most demand. Expanded NBA playoff coverage as the rounds progress. Continued tracking of how search behavior shifts across sports as the calendar moves.

If you're interested in following along, the rest of the site is at howtowatchmyteam.com, with team pages for every MLB, NBA, and NFL franchise and dedicated guides for every major streaming platform under /watch. Month two of the data should be more interesting than month one.

About the author

Michael Fischer

Avid sports fan and technology entrepreneur who got tired of the same frustrating question every game night: where is this thing actually on? HowToWatchMyTeam.com is my answer to that — a no-nonsense guide for fans who just want to watch the game.