New York searches for illegal sports streams at a higher rate per capita than any other state in the country: 5,316 searches per 100,000 residents over the past year, 1.41 times the national average. We analyzed 12 months of Google search volume behind jailbroken Firestick setups and "watch free" keywords to find out which states have the biggest appetite for piracy, and which sports are driving it heading into the NFL and college football season's busiest stretch.
Key numbers
- 5,316 searches per 100,000 residents in New York, the highest rate of any state, 1.41 times the national average
- 9.1 million searches for illegal sports streams tracked over the last 12 months, not counting FIFA World Cup terms
- 425,430 NFL-related piracy searches in September alone, about 43% of the category's entire yearly total in one month
- 4.97x Vermont's NHL piracy search rate versus the national average, the biggest gap of any state in any category tracked
- 2.1x Hawaii's NFL piracy search rate versus the national average, the highest for any state in the NFL category specifically
Why now
College football and the NFL now run games on nearly every day of the week between September and January, and this fall's stretch includes the sports equinox on Monday, Oct. 26, when the NFL, NBA, NHL, and World Series all land on the same night. We pulled Google search volume for keywords tied to illegal streaming, sorted it by state and by sport, and weighted it against population to see where unauthorized streaming demand is actually concentrated, not just where it's biggest in raw numbers.
Ranking states by total search volume mostly tells you which states have the most people. California and Texas lead the country by raw volume, at 1,722,990 and 1,211,520 searches a year, but once that's adjusted for population, they fall to 7th and 16th. Ranking by searches per 100,000 residents instead shows where piracy demand is actually concentrated: the Northeast corridor.
New York's rate of 5,316 searches per 100,000 residents runs 1.41 times the national average. New Jersey (5,191, 1.38x), Delaware (4,667, 1.24x), Maryland (4,567, 1.21x), and Rhode Island (4,460, 1.18x) round out the top five. Oklahoma sits at the opposite end of the list, at 2,329 searches per 100,000, 0.62 times the national average.
Full state ranking, by search rate per 100,000 residents
| Rank (By Capita) | State | Searches / 100K | x National Avg. | Total Yearly Searches | Rank by Volume |
| 1 | New York | 5,316 | 1.41x | 1,056,250 | 3 |
| 2 | New Jersey | 5,191 | 1.38x | 493,150 | 6 |
| 3 | Delaware | 4,667 | 1.24x | 49,090 | 40 |
| 4 | Maryland | 4,567 | 1.21x | 286,030 | 15 |
| 5 | Rhode Island | 4,460 | 1.18x | 49,610 | 39 |
| 6 | Connecticut | 4,451 | 1.18x | 163,590 | 22 |
| 7 | California | 4,370 | 1.16x | 1,722,990 | 1 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | 4,368 | 1.16x | 311,740 | 12 |
| 9 | Virginia | 4,305 | 1.14x | 379,290 | 10 |
| 10 | Florida | 4,238 | 1.13x | 990,490 | 4 |
| 11 | Nevada | 4,224 | 1.12x | 138,010 | 26 |
| 12 | Georgia | 4,090 | 1.09x | 457,260 | 7 |
| 13 | North Carolina | 3,956 | 1.05x | 437,000 | 9 |
| 14 | Kansas | 3,956 | 1.05x | 117,520 | 30 |
| 15 | Illinois | 3,930 | 1.04x | 499,480 | 5 |
| 16 | Texas | 3,872 | 1.03x | 1,211,520 | 2 |
| 17 | Washington | 3,660 | 0.97x | 291,270 | 14 |
| 18 | Vermont | 3,571 | 0.95x | 23,160 | 48 |
| 19 | Wyoming | 3,473 | 0.92x | 20,410 | 50 |
| 20 | Pennsylvania | 3,414 | 0.91x | 446,520 | 8 |
| 21 | Iowa | 3,408 | 0.90x | 110,480 | 31 |
| 22 | South Carolina | 3,370 | 0.89x | 184,630 | 20 |
| 23 | Arizona | 3,280 | 0.87x | 248,710 | 16 |
| 24 | Colorado | 3,216 | 0.85x | 191,620 | 19 |
| 25 | Oregon | 3,212 | 0.85x | 137,240 | 27 |
| 26 | Hawaii | 3,158 | 0.84x | 45,670 | 42 |
| 27 | Louisiana | 3,078 | 0.82x | 141,500 | 25 |
| 28 | Tennessee | 3,066 | 0.81x | 221,580 | 17 |
| 29 | New Hampshire | 3,055 | 0.81x | 43,050 | 43 |
| 30 | North Dakota | 3,053 | 0.81x | 24,320 | 47 |
| 31 | Utah | 3,047 | 0.81x | 106,750 | 32 |
| 32 | Alaska | 3,018 | 0.80x | 22,340 | 49 |
| 33 | Ohio | 2,980 | 0.79x | 354,090 | 11 |
| 34 | New Mexico | 2,973 | 0.79x | 63,330 | 36 |
| 35 | Michigan | 2,956 | 0.78x | 299,750 | 13 |
| 36 | Maine | 2,943 | 0.78x | 41,350 | 44 |
| 37 | South Dakota | 2,914 | 0.77x | 26,940 | 46 |
| 38 | Mississippi | 2,906 | 0.77x | 85,520 | 34 |
| 39 | Kentucky | 2,879 | 0.76x | 132,090 | 29 |
| 40 | Indiana | 2,872 | 0.76x | 198,840 | 18 |
| 41 | Minnesota | 2,869 | 0.76x | 166,180 | 21 |
| 42 | Nebraska | 2,762 | 0.73x | 55,380 | 37 |
| 43 | West Virginia | 2,664 | 0.71x | 47,160 | 41 |
| 44 | Missouri | 2,605 | 0.69x | 162,690 | 23 |
| 45 | Alabama | 2,590 | 0.69x | 133,610 | 28 |
| 46 | Idaho | 2,566 | 0.68x | 51,360 | 38 |
| 47 | Montana | 2,545 | 0.68x | 28,940 | 45 |
| 48 | Arkansas | 2,492 | 0.66x | 76,950 | 35 |
| 49 | Wisconsin | 2,400 | 0.64x | 143,080 | 24 |
| 50 | Oklahoma | 2,329 | 0.62x | 95,370 | 33 |
"x National Avg." shows each state's rate as a multiple of the national average (1.00x = average). "Rank by volume" is the same state's rank by total raw search count, unadjusted for population.
By sport: who's searching for what
Searches for device and app-based streaming workarounds, including jailbroken Firestick setups, account for 46% of total search volume, the single largest share of any category group, since a lot of people are searching for a tool that unlocks every sport rather than a single league. But broken out by individual sport, the per-capita data shows real differences which states will be looking for cost-free viewing options, and a couple of them don't line up with where the teams actually are.
Two of the categories below cover football, but they're tracking different searches. NFL only counts terms that name the league directly, like "watch nfl games free." Football (general) catches everything else football-related that doesn't say NFL: Monday Night Football and other primetime games searched by name, plus a large share of college football searches. Keeping them separate means a fan hunting for a specific NFL game isn't lumped in with someone searching for college football or a Monday night broadcast more generally, even though both would show up under a single "football" label in a less granular dataset.
NFL
California has the most NFL piracy searches in raw volume (114,940 a year), but Hawaii has the highest rate per capita, 521 searches per 100,000 residents, 2.1 times the national average for the category. Hawaii has no NFL franchise. The single most-searched NFL piracy term nationally is "watch nfl games live free," at 114,340 projected yearly searches, and NFL-category searches overall are heavily concentrated in September: 425,430 searches that month alone, against 141,290 in October and 128,230 in November. Roughly 71% of all NFL piracy search volume for the year lands in the September-to-November window.
Football (general), covering Monday Night Football and college football
California again leads by volume (70,570 a year), while Wyoming has the highest rate per capita at 340 per 100,000. Montana's rate runs furthest above the national average for the category, at 2.1 times. The top keyword nationally is "where to watch monday night football for free," projected at 96,510 searches a year, and it peaks in November, when rivalry week and the heart of the college football schedule overlap with the NFL's own Monday night slate. Unlike the NFL category, football-general search volume actually dips in October (81,020) before climbing back to 124,060 in November.
NBA
New York has the highest NBA piracy search rate per capita (379 per 100,000), while Oklahoma's rate runs furthest above the national average, at 1.6 times. California leads by volume (78,290 a year).
Basketball (general)
Delaware has the highest rate per capita (95 per 100,000), and Kentucky's rate runs furthest above the national average, at 2.11 times. New York leads by volume (15,060 a year).
MLB
Alaska leads both measures: the highest rate per capita (155 per 100,000) and the state running furthest above the national average for the category, at 2.73 times. California leads by volume (36,710 a year).
NHL
Vermont leads both measures here too, and by the widest margin of any sport in the dataset: 143 searches per 100,000 residents, 4.97 times the national average. New York has the most NHL piracy searches in raw volume (7,850 a year).
Two patterns repeat across the sport-specific categories. States without a home franchise in a given league (Hawaii for the NFL, Vermont for the NHL) post some of the highest per-capita search rates for that sport, well above the national average, suggesting that a lack of local broadcast access pushes fans toward a search bar rather than away from the sport entirely. And volume leaders by raw count are almost always the same handful of large states (California, New York), while the per-capita leaders are a completely different, usually smaller, set of states in each case.
Monthly trend: the season drives the searches
Search volume for sports piracy terms (excluding FIFA World Cup keywords) is highest in September, at 1,247,010 searches nationally, more than any other month of the year. It falls to 911,310 in October, then climbs back to 965,780 in November before gradually declining into the new year:
| Month | Searches |
| Sep 2025 | 1,247,010 |
| Oct 2025 | 911,310 |
| Nov 2025 | 965,780 |
| Dec 2025 | 882,800 |
| Jan 2026 | 882,400 |
| Feb 2026 | 660,890 |
| Mar 2026 | 592,990 |
| Apr 2026 | 559,800 |
| May 2026 | 586,390 |
| Jun 2026 | 805,100 |
| Jul 2026 | 478,760 |
| Aug 2026 | 524,760 |
The monthly data can't isolate a single day, so it doesn't directly show a spike for the Oct. 26 sports equinox itself. But the football-adjacent categories tracked, NFL and football (general), post some of their highest totals of the year in the September-through-January window that contains it.
The sports equinox
Monday, Oct. 26, 2026 is this year's sports equinox, the date when the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB all have games on the same day. It will be the 33rd time it's happened since the first one on Oct. 17, 1971, and this year's slate includes the Cowboys-Eagles game on Monday Night Football, Game 3 of the World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, a nine-game NBA night, and three NHL games, all airing within hours of each other. Layer that on top of a college football slate that now runs Tuesday through Saturday most weeks in October and November, and the search data tracks: demand for a way to watch "for free" doesn't let up once the season starts. It shifts from "how do I watch opening weekend" in September to "how do I watch tonight's game" on a night when there's something worth watching in four different leagues at once.
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Methodology
- Keywords associated with illegal or unauthorized sports streaming were identified across ten categories: IPTV, jailbroken Firestick devices, FIFA World Cup free-stream searches, NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and general football, basketball, and sports terms.
- Google search volume for each keyword was pulled on a monthly basis for the 12-month period from September 2025 through August 2026.
- State-level search volume was calculated for each category and summed into a per-state total, then converted into a rate per 100,000 residents using current state population figures, so that large and small states could be compared fairly.
- The national average used throughout is the population-weighted average rate per 100,000 residents: total searches across all 50 states divided by total population. Each state's "x National Avg." figure is its own per-100,000 rate divided by that national average.
- In the by-sport breakdown, the state said to run furthest above the national average is the one whose rate for that specific sport category deviates furthest from the national average rate for that category, not from its overall piracy search rate.
- FIFA World Cup keywords are included in the full state and category datasets but excluded from the national monthly trend, since that spike is tied to the 2026 World Cup rather than the NFL and college football season this report focuses on.
- This research measures search intent, not confirmed streaming or viewing behavior. A search for a given term does not confirm that the person who made it went on to access an illegal stream.
You can find the dataset in full here.
