The Brief 8.6 million searches were tied to unauthorized sports streaming in the U.S. in the last 12 months. Fall and winter months saw the highest number of searches across the country, most likely due to football season. Illinois was the Midwest state that had the largest number of  illegal streamers , while Wisconsin had the second lowest per capita in the country.



Watching sports has become more difficult than ever, especially if you're someone who doesn't pay for cable. Streaming services are slowly becoming the norm and depending on the night, a game could be on anyone of them. With the price for each service continuing to rise as well, some have resorted to illegally streaming sports on their computers or phones. So which states have been the biggest culprit?

Midwest states that are illegally streaming sports

The backstory:

To find the answer to this question, a study was done by Action Network to determine which states were streaming illegally the most. The sports website analyzed Google search volume over the past 12 months to pinpoint how many searches for illegal sports streaming were being performed in every state in the U.S.

By the numbers:

Landing at the top of the list for states in the Midwest was Illinois, which saw just under 500,000 searches over the past 12 months. The FIFA World Cup in particular saw the largest number of illegal sports streaming searches in the state, with just over 130,000. Searches for NFL games were the second most popular with a little over 38,000.

Michigan saw a total of 291,200 illegal sports searches, with the World Cup again leading with over 64,000 searches, followed by the NFL with just under 24,000.

Other notable Midwest states include Minnesota with over 162,000 searches, led by the World Cup (49,130 searches) and NFL (15,800 searches), and Wisconsin with just under 140,000 searches, similarly led by the World Cup (33,950 searches) and NFL (14,780 searches).

Wisconsin actually finished with the second-lowest search rate in the country, per 100,000 residents, with just a touch more illegal stream searches per capita tha

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