The 2023 UEFA Champions League took place this past weekend on Saturday, June 10th, 2023, at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey. Facing off was the English club Manchester City against Italian club Inter Milan. The Manchester fans in the crowd had a lot to celebrate by the end of the match. Manchester City won against Inter Milan with 1-0, their first ever Champions League title, completing a continental treble (when a club wins the National League Competition, Main National Cup Competition, and the Main Continental Trophy).
As with any event of this scope, we know there are going to be significant changes to traffic. Our statisticians took a closer look at how the Champions League disrupted those patterns, breaking it down by competing regions, hourly timelines, and how it altered the traffic of Europe.
Average Change During Game Time
Italy saw a massive decrease in traffic to Pornhub, almost double the amount of the competing team. During game time, Italy’s traffic was -31% below average, whereas The United Kingdom only dropped -16%.
Aside from the competing teams, certain countries appeared to have more investment in watching the match than others. Following closely behind Italy’s -31% drop was Norway with a -28% drop, Belgium with a -25% drop, Greece and Spain with a -20% drop, Switzerland and Iceland with a -19% drop, and then Portugal, Bulgaria and the Netherlands with a -18% drop.
The countries least interested in the match were Hungary, Finland and Ukraine with a small -2% drop and finally, Slovakia, with a tiny -1% drop.
Traffic Changes by Region
When we looked at how traffic broke down by region, we saw some very similar results. Traffic in Italy began to plummet around 19:00 (GMT+3). The same result was seen in The United Kingdom, traffic began to drop around 19:00 (GMT+3). Both countries saw their biggest drop of the game at around 23:00 (GMT+3), with Italy at -32% and the UK at -17%.
Interestingly enough, traffic in Manchester started dropping long before the 19:00 (GMT+3) mark. By 17:00 (GMT+3), traffic was already dropping to around -5%. It stayed that way until 20:00 (GMT+3), when a surge happened until 21:00 (GMT+3), and then began to plummet again.
When we looked at Europe as a whole, we saw a small increase in traffic around 13:00 (GMT+3), followed by a drop at 17:00 (GMT+3). Again, like Italy and the UK, traffic surged as soon as the game was over shortly before midnight (GMT+3), with Italy reaching +12% and the UK reaching +8%.
Congratulations to Manchester City and we hope you enjoyed this edition of UEFA Champions League Insights!