Athletes With the Most-Viewed Wikipedia Pages

What’s better than sports? Sports information. Enter Wikipedia. Besides being the great digital encyclopedia of our time, Wikipedia has been settling sports debates since 2001.

Have a question about when Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight championship for the first time? Turn to Wikipedia. You and your friends disagree over what year Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl? Quick, pull up Wikipedia. 

The website and its estimated 55 million articles have been a blessing to sports fans who want to dive into the details about their sports heroes — athletes who have churned up a tremendous amount of pageviews on their Wikipedia pages over the years. These athletes have grabbed the most clicks.

Note: Stadium Talk partnered with our friends at Wikipedia and Myprotein to pull the statistics on athletes with the most-viewed Wikipedia pages from 2008 through the end of 2020. 

Born: June 26, 1980 (Newport News, Virginia)

Sport: Football

Total Wikipedia pageviews: 11,180,103

Career highlights: NFL Comeback Player of the Year (2010), four-time Pro Bowler (2002, 2004, 2005, 2010), Heisman Trophy finalist (1999), Big East Offensive Player of the Year (1999), Big East Rookie of the Year (1999)

Bottom line: Michael Vick could do just about anything on a football field, but his skills could not overshadow the scandal that enveloped his life and dominated headlines when he was indicted on federal dogfighting charges in 2007.

Vick was one of the most marketable and highly paid athletes in the world at the time of his arrest and was eventually sentenced to two years in federal prison.

He returned to the NFL and signed a six-year, $100 million contract with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2011.  

Born: May 15, 1975 (Bartow, Florida) 

Sport: Football

Total Wikipedia pageviews: 11,183,402

Career highlights: Two-time Super Bowl champion (2000, 2012), Super Bowl MVP (2000), 13-time Pro Bowler (1997-2001, 2003, 2004, 2006-11), 10-time All-Pro (1997-2001, 2003, 2004, 2008-10), two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year (2000, 2003), NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team, Pro Football Hall of Fame (2018)

Bottom line: No player was as consistent on the defensive side of the ball, start to finish, as Ray Lewis.

In his 17 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, Lewis won two Super Bowls, in 2000 and 2012, with the latter coming in Lewis’ final game. His 10 All-Pro selections are tied for the NFL career record alongside Lawrence Taylor.

Off the field, Lewis’ career was almost over before it started. He beat a double-murder charge before the 2000 season following the stabbing deaths of two men in a fight after a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. 

Born: Oct. 4, 1988 (Chicago, Illinois)

Sport: Basketball

Total Wikipedia pageviews: 11,369,379

Career highlights: NBA MVP (2011), three-time NBA All-Star (2010-12), All-NBA Team (2011), NBA Rookie of the Year (2009)

Bottom line: Few players in NBA history have started their careers as well as Derrick Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft. Rose was the NBA MVP in 2011, in just his third season, becoming the youngest player in NBA history to win the award at just 22 years old.

Rose appeared to have the Bulls on the verge of becoming a legitimate NBA title contender again before his career came undone with a string of devastating injuries, including an ACL tear in the 2011-12 season, and a rape accusation in California that ended in a messy civil lawsuit.

Rose signed a five-year, $94.8 million contract extension right before his injury and didn’t play a game from May 2012 to October 2013. At one point, it looked like he might be finished, but he rediscovered his game, and the second half of his career has been inspiring.

Born: Dec. 2, 1983 (Chico, California)

Sport: Football

Total Wikipedia pageviews: 11,786,620

Career highlights: Super Bowl champion (2011), Super Bowl MVP (2011), two-time NFL MVP (2011, 2014), four-time NFL All-Pro (2011, 2012, 2014, 2020), nine-time Pro Bowl (2009, 2011, 2012, 2014-16, 2018-20), NFL 2010s All-Decade Team, AP Athlete of the Year (2011)

Bottom line: Aaron Rodgers is one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time. But he started his NFL career as one of the first internet sensations of the modern age, when a national audience watched his dramatic drop in the NFL draft live, with Rodgers squirming in the green room on national television.

Rodgers spent several years as an understudy with the Green Bay Packers and Hall of Famer Brett Favre before taking over the team, where Rodgers has sliced and diced NFL defenses for over a decade.

Off the field, he’s been one of the most marketable stars in the league and has dated “X-Men” action star Olivia Munn and NASCAR driver Danica Patrick in the past.