The Super Bowl, the annual American football event for the NFL, is coming up.
The big game takes place on Sunday, February 11, 2024 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. It’s the first time Las Vegas has hosted the game.
The Super Bowl isn’t the only big event, for sports or culture, that’s significant for 2024. In March, the annual Academy Awards — i.e. the Oscars — take place in Beverly Hills, California. The Grammy Awards just took place on Sunday, February 4 in Los Angeles. Plus, don’t forget that this summer, the Olympic Games will take place in Paris.
As someone who delves into the world of SEO for a living, and for others to understand the true weight to these events, it begs the question — exactly how popular are all these major events in sports and entertainment? In terms of television ratings, the Super Bowl draws around 100 million viewers each year. And for comparison, the 2023 Oscar’s drew roughly 19 million.
When figuring out how popular various sporting and entertainment events are in the United States and throughout the world, we can look at data — Google search and Google Trends.
Google Search Popularity of the Super Bowl Compared to Other Major Events
Note: Unless specified, the average search volume listed is a monthly average for a given month. The time period is from Jan-Dec 2023. December 2023 is the latest month Google has keyword data available.
So, how popular is the Super Bowl on the internet?
The term “Super Bowl” averages 3,350,000 average monthly searches. This doesn’t factor in seasonality and gives marketers a better idea of how often a term is searched over a bigger time period.
Google has not provided keyword data for January or February 2024 yet, but in February 2023, “super bowl” was searched 30,400,000 times in the United States!
How does this compare to the Oscars or other large American events like film and music festivals?
Compare the Super Bowl number to the Oscars — the term “Oscars” averages 368,000 searches per month. Even if you combine “oscars” with “academy awards” — you get 442,000 searches per month — that’s roughly a 100 percent decrease in the amount of average monthly searches compared to the Super Bowl.
How about the other popular events in entertainment and sports? The photo below shows search popularity for various events, whether it’s a film festival (Sundance), music festivals (Lollapalooza), or celebration periods (Mardi Gras). The Super Bowl is the most popular topic, by far, in the United States.
*data for the past 12 months
What are Popular Search Topics Regarding the Super Bowl?
“Super bowl 2023” has actually had more searches over the past 12 months — 4,090,000, than the term “Super Bowl.“ When is the super bowl” has 550,000 searches.
Trending Super Bowl Topics in 2024
Obviously, there are various other items around the Super Bowl that people search. Google doesn’t provide search volume for the current time period yet, but we can see this from Google Trends. Google Trends gives the info on queries with the biggest increase in search frequency over a certain time period.
Using the time period of January 24-30, most of the search increase compared to the previous week is about Taylor Swift. Also, in case you’re wondering, “lions super bowl tattoo” refers to this story.
Popular Sporting Events in Google Search
The Super Bowl is extremely popular, which isn’t a surprise. At least according to the internet, what are other popular events?
Popular Google Topics in the United States
The Super Bowl is king — while the second most popular event is “us open” which has an average volume of 2,240,000.
But there’s a catch to that as that can include the golf tournament, which takes place each June, as well as the tennis grand slam each September.
“NBA Finals” is searched 1,220,000 times whereas “Wimbledon” — the tennis Grand Slam in England each summer — also has an average of 1,220,000 searches.
Popular Google Sports Topics Throughout the World
What if we include not just the United States, but Google search volume throughout the world? When the Super Bowl is looked at worldwide, it’s no longer the king.
In this data, there’s much more of a worldwide flavor. “Super Bowl” has 5,000,000 worldwide searches — understandably the vast majority of these come from America.
Throughout the world, America’s biggest event is equaled by the “Australian Open.” “Wimbledon” has 9,140,000 monthly searches while “US open” has 7,480. “Roland Garros” — the nickname for tennis’ clay court tournament, the French Open — has 6,120,000 searches, while “French Open” has 2,740,000.
All of these numbers pale in comparison to the biggest sporting event in the world — the World Cup. That term has an average of 20,400,000 searches per month! And the event happens every four years. In 2023, the world saw the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, while the men’s event took place in late 2022. Therefore the number we’re looking at here is capturing the popularity of both the men’s and women’s event.
If the date range is changed to January-December of 2022 — the year the most recent men’s event took place, “World Cup” had an insane average of 45,500,000 searches.
What are Google Users Looking For When it Comes to The Oscars?
Google search terms around the Oscars include terms you would expect, like “oscar nominations 2023” and “oscar winning movies” — both at 14,800 average monthly searches. Google users also frequently search “oscar statue” (5,400), “oscars best dressed” (8,100), and “youtube oscars” (1,000).
“Chris Rock Will Smith” was even searched 201,000 times in 2023, though that’s a 46% year over year decrease from when the infamous slap happened.
How Does The Oscars’ Popularity Compare to Other Awards?
In terms of awards show internet popularity, Oscars are No. 1 and it’s not close. It’s more than double the monthly search volume of the Grammy Awards.
- “Emmys”: 246,000
- “Golden Globe”: 165,000
- “Grammys”: 368,000
- “Oscars”: 1,220,000
- “Tonys”: 110,000
Sports, including the Super Bowl, and Award Show Have Extreme Popularity
Popularity in internet search is a great reference point when talking about the popularity of something — and these metrics are just further evidence regarding how big of an event the Super Bowl is.
As you probably know, the Chiefs are playing the 49ers. Curious as to what the most searched NFL team is? I tackled that as well.
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