The Ohio Buckeyes overtook Oregon in a 42-20 win, claiming the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship title on January 12th 2015. While most eyes last night were glued to Heisman winner Marcus Mariota and Ohio State star QB Cardale Jones, the Pornhub and Youporn statisticians were carefully tracking traffic patterns. Let’s take a look at how this latest sporting event shaped the flow of visitors to the greatest sites in the world.
As we have noted during Superbowl XLVIII and a slew of other major sporting events, traffic tends to start dipping steadily leading up to game time, fluctuates slightly during the game, then picks back up as the game ends. This chart allows us to specifically pinpoint traffic changes in the US nationwide, as well as in Oregon and Ohio leading up to the 7:30pm CST kickoff then during the game including a 20 minute halftime around 9:15pm, then following the end of the game at 11:10pm. The general fluctuation patterns are the same across the board, but the severity of the rises and falls differs significantly.
The most significant traffic dips and peaks took place in victorious Ohio, where during game time, traffic was down around 15% overall with a noticeable rise back up during the halftime performance. This same halftime increase can be noted in the US at large as well as in Oregon. Interestingly, Ohio celebrated with a huge rush back to Pornhub after the game. In Oregon, traffic picked back up after the final score was settled as well, but only rose around 7% above average meaning that many were licking their wounds elsewhere. We noticed the opposite effect after the Superbowl, when Colorado traffic rose higher than winning Washington’s after the Seahawks had their way with the Broncos. As such, this 24% traffic increase in Ohio immediately following the end of the game is quite remarkable. Winning looks good on you, Ohio!