The 2018 World Cup finals wrapped up on Sunday, July 15th as France beat Croatia with a final score of 4 to 2. Just as we saw with our previous 2018 World Cup Insights, traffic to Pornhub can drop significantly when fans tune in to watch their country’s team play. Mashable checked in to see if the final match saw even bigger traffic drops from France, Croatia and elsewhere in the world.
Just prior to kick off, traffic in France was down -24% while Croatia dipped -46%. Croatia’s traffic remained lower throughout the game, dropping as much as -68% in the first hour, but began to recover in the second hour, just as traffic from France continued to drop. Perhaps some Croatians had given up hope of seeing their team win, while more fans in France tuned in to see their team become victorious for the first time in 20 years.
After the game ended, traffic remained much lower than average in France for several hours, while traffic recovered quickly in Croatia and rose by +7% above average. Perhaps Croatian fans were looking to cheer themselves up, while those in France were too busy celebrating.
While Sunday’s final may have been a disappointment for Croatians, the 2018 World Cup gave them plenty of chances to celebrate. The following chart illustrates how traffic changed during each match leading up to the final. The final match had the lowest overall traffic drop, but when the semi-final against England went into extra time, traffic plummeted by -70% as all eye were glued to the game. Indeed, each time a match went into extra time, traffic saw a significant drop.
None of France’s games went into extra time, but they still saw big drops during each match. The semi-final game against Belgium saw almost as many fans tune out of Pornhub to watch their team play.
Worldwide, Pornhub’s traffic dipped -11% during the match, but many countries took a particular interest in watching the game. As you would expect, Croatia and France had the biggest drops of -66% and -55% respectively, but Venezuela matched France also at -55%. The next biggest drops came from Bulgaria (-45%), Slovenia (-40%), Hong Kong and Switzerland (both -33%).
If we look at the list of countries that regularly being the most traffic to Pornhub, traffic from the United States only dropped -5% during the game. European countries saw much larger drops including the United Kingdom (-12%), Germany (-21%), Italy (-25%) and Spain (-26%). Canada’s overall traffic dropped by -6%, but traffic in the French speaking province of Quebec was down over double at at -12%.
