Super Bowl 52 took place on Sunday February 4th, with the defending NFL champions the New England Patriots playing the Philadelphia Eagles. In the end, Philadelphia defeated the Patriots 41-33, to win their first Super Bowl. As Super Bowl Insights have become a tradition here at Pornhub (beginning in 2014), let’s begin this year with a look at Sunday’s top trending search terms.
Our statisticians found that searches for “super bowl” shot up 2781% along with a 2115% increase in “halftime” and 862% for “blitz”. Even searches for “touchdown” were up 857%, although we’re afraid to see if any porn videos actually end with either partner shouting “touchdown!”
Celebrities associated with the big game also had big search increases on Sunday. Tom Brady topped the list with a 1620% increase, while his super model wife Gisel only had her searches grow by 404%. Even though Janet Jackson was absent from this year’s halftime show, her searches increased by 565% above their daily average. Janet’s former halftime partner Justin Timberlake saw his searches increase by 344% thanks to his appearance in 2018.
The Super Bowl aired from apx. 6:30pm to 10:30pm Eastern Time, and across the United States traffic dropped an average of -24% below that of a typical Sunday. The largest drop of -28% happened around 9pm. After the game ended, football fans made up for their porn hiatus with a +9% surge above average levels at 11pm. Seeing as Pornhub’s highest traffic time of the week is 11pm on Sundays, that +9% represents a significant increase in visits.
Game-time traffic dropped across the entire country, but the percentage differed greatly depending on the sate. The nation’s most dedicated football fans were from Delaware, where traffic dropped by -45% between 6pm and 11pm. Elsewhere on the East Coast, traffic dropped by -43% in Rhode Island, -42% in Massachusetts and -41% in Pennsylvania. That’s quite understandable seeing as both teams were from Eastern states. The smallest traffic changes happened in Kansas (-11%), Nevada (-12%) and Alabama (-14%).
While traffic drops were similar in both Philadelphia and Boston during most of the game, Eagles fans held out a bit longer, with their biggest traffic drop of -58% happening at 10pm. Even Philadelphia’s most dutiful fappers stopped greasing their poles and tuned in to see their team take the championship. By that time however, fans from Boston were already rushing back to Pornhub, where traffic surged +28% above normal in the hours following their defeat.
State-wide traffic changes during the game mostly followed suit, with the biggest drops happening around 9pm by -45% in Pennsylvania and -53% in Massachusetts. We found it interesting that whether the Patriots win or lose, fans in Massachusetts are just as likely to head back to Pornhub after the game. Our 2017 Superbowl Insights found a similar +30% increase in post-game traffic across Massachusetts after the Patriots won Superbowl 51.
Whether they’re tuning in for the game, the commercials or the halftime show, the Super Bowl attracts massive visits from both genders. Based on our Google Analytics data, we found that male traffic across the U.S. dropped by as much as -30% while female traffic dropped by only -22%. Female traffic remained equally low around 8pm, while male traffic increased slightly. Could than mean that women were more likely to stick around to watch Justin Timberlake’s halftime show, while men took the opportunity to visit Pornhub? Post game traffic from men surged +10% at Midnight, while female traffic returned mostly to normal with a +7% increase at 2am.
We often get asked how America’s neighbors to the North compare during big U.S. media events, so our statisticians checked Superbowl Sunday traffic from Canada as well. While the traffic change is not as dramatic as it is in the U.S., traffic in Canada dropped by -16% from 7pm to 8pm, followed by an increase of +6% above average at 11pm.
