Research Shows Goat Emoji is Used Most Often in Connection with Tom Brady's Big Games

The number of goat emoji's tweeted surges when the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has a big game.

The debate over which athlete is truly the "greatest of all time"– also known as the GOAT–seems to be never ending. From M.J. to LeBron to Serena Williams, name after name is floated. But according to Twitter data reviewed by The The Wall Street Journal, the real GOAT is Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

In the past two years, there have been almost 30 million tweets that feature the goat emoji. According to Twitter, all of the top-20 days that the emoji has been used most often is connected to a significant moment in sports.

One of those top-20 days came during this year's AFC Championship game, when the Patriots beat the Chiefs after a 75-yard overtime touchdown drive orchestrated by Brady. 161,351 tweets were sent using the goat emoji after the game.

There has only been one time in the history of Twitter when more tweets were sent with the goat emoji – the day after Brady led New England to a 34–28 win over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI after overcoming a 28–3 deficit. The comeback made Brady "the GOAT" to more than 300,000 Twitter users.

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"On any given day, there are roughly 40,000 tweets with the goat emoji," the WSJ reports. "There were 333,665 tweets with the goat emoji the day after Mr. Brady’s last Super Bowl win. The uptick of goat emojis amounted to a nearly 750% increase."

The most tweets with a 🐐 came after the Patriots came back against the Falcons in the Super Bowl. The second most: when the Patriots beat the Chiefs in the AFC Championship.

Tom Brady is the GOAT of 🐐. https://t.co/UqglnyMUNT pic.twitter.com/wfwospkFpg

— Andrew Beaton (@andrewlbeaton) January 29, 2019

Brady leading the Patriots to a win over the Chargers in the AFC Divisional round secures the star signal caller's third slot in the list.

A Game 5 buzzer beater by LeBron James and the 2018 Eastern Conference title make him the athlete with the next-most GOAT tweets. But with three apperances on record-setting emoji-usage days, Brady does in fact appear to be the true Twitter GOAT.