Everyone is getting geared up for Sunday’s Super Bowl and there is growing interest in each of the quarterbacks. Searches for ‘tom brady’ and ‘eli manning’ both jumped last week as curious fans looked for information on each of the players. The weekly search term share of traffic increased 336% for ‘tom brady’ and 209% for ‘eli manning’ for the week ending Jan. 26th compared to the previous week.

Many of the searches for each player result in a visit to Wikipedia, suggesting that people are just interested in some basic background information. For ‘tom brady’ searches, the official site of the New England Patriots, patriots.com is the second beneficiary of the search traffic. The website for Eli’s team, the New York Giants, ranked tenth for websites that received traffic from ‘eli manning’, for the same time period.


The search behavior also exhibits particular interest in the personal lives of Tom and Eli, especially around information about who they are dating. Tom Brady’s high profile romances with current girlfriend, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan are drivers of many searches on Tom’s name. Last week, search volume around his girlfriend and baby ranked higher than inquiries about his possible ankle injury. Eli Manning’s girlfriend may not be as well known, but searchers are also looking for information about his romantic interest (he is dating Abby McGrew) as well. Eli’s brother Peyton, quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, also appears in searches for Eli’s name to see if they are related.

I guess the fascination with who is dating the quarterback extends long after high school. Tom & Eli should make sure to show their good sides on Sunday, there are lots of searches for their photos!