The 2018 World Cup kicked off June 14th and because the tournament lasts a full month, it gave Pornhub’s statisticians and our friends at Metro UK a treasure-trove of data to study from all over the world. After the first match began, searches for both “football” and “soccer” doubled and continue to remain much higher than average.
Search growth certainly shows that Pornhub fans have an increased interest in soccer, but where does that interest go when their country’s team is playing a match? Are people willing to give up Pornhub time in favor of game time? And what countries have the biggest fans who are most willing to give up porn to see their teams play? Read on to find out!
Pornhub’s statisticians first looked at all of the qualifying matches to find the average traffic drop by country when their teams were playing a game. The change was compared to the same time period on an average day two weeks before the World Cup tournament began.
Senegal topped our charts of the most soccer obsessed country, where Pornhub’s traffic fell an average of -47% while their team was playing. They’re followed closely by -45% drops in Iran, -42% in Iceland, and -40% in both Croatia and Morocco.
At the bottom of the list with less than 10% drops in traffic are France, Costa Rica, Russia and Australia.
During the knockout matches, Pornhub’s statisticians looked at each of the playing countries during the game to see which country was more likely to tune in to see if their team made it to the next stage.
During Match 1, Pornhub’s traffic from Uruguay dropped a massive -61% and fans were rewarded by seeing their team win. During Match 2, traffic drops in France and Argentina were nearly identical at -35% and -36%. Nearly identical drops were also recorded between Croatia and Denmark in Match 4, and Colombia and England in Match 8. The biggest difference between countries was found in Match 5, with a -33% traffic drop in Brazil versus a -12% drop in Mexico.
Stay tuned for more World Cup Insights to come. To see how other sports events can cause fluctuations in Pornhub traffic be sure to check out our other insights like Super Bowl 52, 2018 Winter Olympics, 2016 Summer Olympics, NBA Finals and MLB World Series.