Pandemic hobbies: Some have stuck around longer than others

Pandemic hobbies: Some have stuck around longer than others

6/17/21 8:00PM

This week British bicycle retailer Halfords warned that it expected the "global bike shortage" to continue, as the surge in demand for bikes during the pandemic has lingered into the end of 2020 and the start of 2021.

The bike boom is an example of a hobby that exploded during the pandemic — and has actually had some staying power. Google searches for "bike for sale" have come down from their pandemic peak, but are still higher in 2021 than they ever were in 2019.

‍Yoga is another activity that has maintained at least some of the momentum, as have searches for home workout routines, which again are (only slightly) higher in 2021 than they were in 2019. But of all of the pandemic hobbies, few have replicated what has happened to chess. Searches for online chess got a double boost, first from the pandemic, and then from the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit — which has fuelled a second boom in the ancient game.

Chess, yoga, bike rides and home workouts may have retained varying amounts of their pandemic bump — but the same can't be said for some of the other pandemic fads such as breadmaking and puzzling. Searches for both appear to have returned to levels seen in 2019. Banana bread's 15 minutes of fame is officially over.

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The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.

World cup viewers chart — Sherwood News

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