2010 Super Bowl: Some search touchdowns

While 106 American football players sought yardage in the 2010 Super Bowl, millions of people sought information related to the big game from Google search. We looked at some game-day search trends and data* to see what football fans were searching for this year.

Most searched-for team
To the victor of this year's big game went the search spoils: The New Orleans Saints captured both the NFL championship and the lion's share of Super Bowl team searches in 2010.

Most searched-for player
For leading the New Orleans Saints to their 31–17 win over the Indianapolis Colts — with 288 yards, two touchdowns and 32 of 39 passes completed — quarterback Drew Brees won the Most Valuable Player award. But Peyton Manning earned the status of the Super Bowl's most searched-for player, beating out some tough competition and followed by Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Hank Baskett and Scott Fujita.

Many fans of Reggie Bush also expressed interest in his girlfriend Kim Kardashian; searches for her name, both on its own and linked with Reggie Bush's, spiked significantly during the game. Additionally, search volume for football great Walter Payton — after whom the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award was named — was as high as that for some of the game's top five most searched-for players.

Most searched-for coach
Behind every team is a great coach, and behind every coach is an engaged online community. This year, Sean Payton, who has coached the New Orleans Saints since 2006, was the most searched-for team leader.

Most searched-for party planning terms
Die-hard football fans and casual shindig hosts alike look forward to game day for its party planning possibilities. This year, people went online to find all the information they needed to watch the game and to make sure they were well-fed during the same. Some top rising recipe searches on game day included buffalo chicken dip, guacamole, 7-layer dip and pigs in a blanket.

People were also looking for information on how and when to watch the game; searches related to the start time of the game and watch Super Bowl 2010 online were both notably high.

Most searched-for advertisers
In addition to spotlighting some of the finest football teams in the U.S., the Super Bowl is a showcase for some of the funniest, coolest and most interesting creative advertisements each year. This year, the prospect of "free" dominated the searched-for ads. The offer of free pants from Dockers garnered a spike of queries which continued throughout the game. Twice, Denny's advertised free grand slam breakfasts, leading to two bumps in searches for Denny's free breakfast, Denny's locations and Denny's.

Searchers also enjoyed ads featuring celebrities — including Betty White, who played football and ate Snickers bars, and Megan Fox, who used a Motorola smartphone.

We told the story of an American who finds love in Paris — using search queries. Google Super Bowl commercial led searchers to the love story of a man who dutifully searched for information on how to impress a French girl, long distance relationship advice and how to assemble a crib. (Full disclosure: We work for this advertiser.)

Stay tuned
Which advertiser won the position of Favorite 2010 Super Bowl Ad, according to fans? Check out YouTube's Ad Blitz results on February 17 to see which Super Bowl ad received the greatest number of positive votes from the YouTube community. Until then, you can use Google Trends to see more Super Bowl-related queries.

*We used internal tools to quickly gather this data. All of the search queries we looked at were anonymous — no personal information was used.

Posted by Jeffrey Oldham, Software Engineer