The 2014 FIFA World Cup set new records for viewership around the world. Between June 12 and July 13, fans from 31 countries tuned in to watch their teams advance through the tournament. As with other major events, the Pornhub statisticians already discovered that 2014 World Cup games had a significant effect on traffic to our site. Whenever a match took place, the number of visits to Pornhub would drop, particularly from the countries playing in that game.
In studying the porn viewing habits of various countries, our statisticians have also found that many countries tend to search for their own nationality more than other terms. For example, Russians combine their searches with “Russia” and “Russian”, while Germans mostly search for “German” and “Deutsch”.
So if individual countries tend to search more for their own nationality, what might happen during an event like the World Cup where countries from all over the world face off against each other? Would fans from opposing countries be more curious about their opponents? Read on to find out!
Competitive Curiosities
The short answer to our question is YES. Overall, our statisticians found that searches for country and nationality related terms had indeed increased over the course of the World Cup. Compared to average search volumes in the months preceding the World Cup, countries like Uruguay, Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil and Columbia all saw very noticeable upsurges.
To discover the volumes relating to each country we grouped several search terms to get a broader view. For example, searches for “Colombia” include “Colombian”, “Colombiana” and even “Columbian” to account for misspellings. On a side note, 30% of Pornhub users spell Colombia incorrectly as Columbia.
Getting Your Kicks
We also wanted to see how this data correlated to certain phases during the World Cup. The following chart illustrates not only the overall changes, but the average search increase on days in which the country was playing.
Belgium emerges as the winner with a 0.87 correlation between searches for Belgian porn and the days Belgium was playing in the World Cup. It should be noted that Belgium does have a lower overall search volume than many other countries, which may have helped move it into the top position.
Uruguay and Honduras follow closely behind with close to 0.75 correlations, although Uruguay has nearly 8 times the search volume of Honduras. Costa Rica was the surprise of the World Cup and had an impressive 0.65 correlation between its match days and search volumes.
Brazil had almost no correlation between match days and searches for Brazilians on Pornhub. This is most likely because Brazil, as the host of the games, had its name on everyone’s lips throughout the World Cup so we didn’t notice any spikes, except after their historic loss to Germany. More on that later.
Germany showed a negative correlation between match days and searches for Germans on Pornhub. Why might that be? Thanks to a previous study we conducted on Germany’s porn habits, we have a hypothesis. Our statisticians found that German citizens had by far the largest proportion of searches for their fellow countrymen – nearly 90% of all searches. We also found that traffic to Pornhub dropped significantly in countries while their teams were playing in a match. Since most searches for German related terms were coming from Germany itself, when fans there were distracted by a game, they number of Germans searches dropped significantly.
If we account for search volumes, Colombia did quite well since they had more actual searches than the preceding 4 countries combined, plus the 2nd highest average increase on match days and a decent correlation between match days and searches.
This table shows the average percentage increase in searches for the countries playing on each day of the different match states. As we can see, Round of 16 provided the highest increase in searches for the countries playing the same day.
This is not surprising as the Round of 16 was the most entertaining phase of the World Cup with 5 of the 8 matches going into extra time, and 2 of them being decided on penalties. The additional break available during extra time and penalties may have contributed to more nationality searches during this phase. Interest was nearly constant during the later Quarter Final, Semi Final and Championship stages.
Balls in Play
Our Pornhub statisticians next selected several countries whose related searches increased during the World Cup, and broke the searches down by day from the start to the end of the tournament. The results were very interesting! The following graphs clearly illustrate how searches for those countries spiked on the days in which their teams were playing.
The largest increase in searches for Belgium related videos took place on July 1st when they played the United States, followed closely by their elimination match with Argentina on July 5th. The top searches were “Belgian” (+42%), “Belgium” (+34%) followed by “Belgian amateur” and “Belgian teen”.
Searches for Chile were up throughout the World Cup, but saw their biggest increase over the 24 hours following their June 18 match with Spain. Their June 28th elimination match with Brazil caused the second largest jump in searches, with a gradual lessening over the next several days. The top searches were “Chilena” (+78%) and “Chilean” (+85%) followed by “Anal Chilena”.
Once searches for Colombia had gone up, they stayed up. It looks like Pornhub users liked what they discovered! The biggest search increase took place between July 4th and 5th following their elimination match with Brazil. The most popular searches during that time were “Colombian” (+72%), “Colombiana” (+23%) and “Colombia” (+40%). The misspelled term “Columbia” increased even more (+79%), indicating that the additional searches were indeed coming from non-Colombians.
Costa Rica was the surprise of the 2014 World Cup so it’s no surprise that there was an increase in searches. Their June 20th match with Italy caused a jump in searches, but much less when they played England 4 days later resulting in a score of 0-0. The biggest increase in searches was a result of their June 29th match with Greece. During these times, the most popular searches were “Costa Rica” (+130%), “Costa Rican” (+297%), “amateur Costa Rica” (+360%) and “Costa Rican teens” (+119%).
Interest in the Netherlands was up and down over the course of the World Cup, but it was highest following their July 9th game with Argentina. The search terms used were primarily “Netherlands” (+195%) and “Dutch Amateur” (+55%).
Uruguay had our highest overall increase in related searches during the world cup, although the actual search volumes were much less than other countries. None-the-less, there was a lot of curiosity over Uruguay, especially on June 19th when they played England. Search terms primarily included “Uruguay” (+280%) and “Uruguaya” (+352%).
The interest in Uruguay was not only limited to porn. Wikipedia’s Article Statistics show that views of their Uruguay page jumped from a daily average of 4000 views to 105,700 on June 19th.
Heading to the Top
As we noted before, Brazil and Germany differed from most of the countries we reviewed. As the host, searches for Brazil were up throughout the course of the World Cup. And any increase in German related searches was likely off-set by a reduction in searches from fellow Germans during the games.
That being said, in the following charts we do see a curious spike in traffic following the July 8th match that saw the German team annihilate Brazil 7-0. So why increase? The answer may lie with some smart-ass Pornhub users, and our own Twitter feed.
After the game ended, a few Pornhub users decided to upload the game highlights to their Pornhub accounts with clever titles like “Young Brazilians get fucked by entire German Soccer team”. Word got around pretty quick (as it often does on the internet), and our own Pornhub Katie Tweeted the following tongue-in-cheek plea:
Please stop uploading the game highlights to Pornhub… Our public humiliation category is full. #BrazilvsGermany
— Pornhub Katie (@Pornhub) July 8, 2014
It didn’t take long for the joke to go viral, and although the videos had to be taken down due to copyright, it resulted in a huge increase in both Brazilian and German related search terms over the 24 hours that followed.
Congratulations to our German friends on your win and stay tuned for more Pornhub Insights to come!