The 2024/25 NFL season was among the most unpredictable in recent memory, with storylines both on and off the field driving widespread attention and dominating News Box visibility. A new kickoff rule reshaped special teams play, Saquon Barkley’s reverse hurdle became an instant viral highlight, and the first full year of the Aaron Rodgers Jets era fell short of fan expectations. Fans witnessed a stunning playoff upset as the 15-win Detroit Lions fell to the Washington Commanders, who went on to lose to the Eagles in the NFC Championship game. Several top teams faced regression and struggled under tougher schedules, creating volatility across the league. And Travis Kelce’s relationship with Taylor Swift turned post-game coverage into a full-blown pop culture phenomenon. So much happened that even the Super Bowl itself, a rematch between the Eagles and Chiefs, was far from the most-searched matchup of the season.

But which stories truly dominated the news cycle—not just in terms of headlines, but in measurable, search-based visibility?

To answer that, this article analyzes the 100 most visible NFL-related keywords in Google’s mobile News Boxes from September 1, 2024 (the week of the season’s opening games), to February 15, 2025 (the week of Super Bowl LIX). These rankings, measured every 15 minutes via the Trisolute News Dashboard, reflect not just what happened, but what consistently appeared in front of readers during the season. The dataset includes keywords across five key themes: teams, players and coaches, general NFL terms, matchups, and the Super Bowl.

Each section breaks down which keywords topped the list and which news publishers captured the most visibility within those topics. Along the way, we explore why some moments surged in visibility while others faded and how media outlets like ESPN, Yahoo, CBS Sports, and the New York Post positioned themselves for success.

For publishers and SEO teams, the takeaways go far beyond football. They highlight the kinds of stories, formats, and timing that push content to the top of the News Box—and show how editorial coverage competes with platforms like YouTube, Twitter/X, Reddit, and even the NFL’s own site.

Let’s kick off.

The 100 most visible NFL keywords (September 1, 2024–February 15, 2025)

The keywords listed below represent those that ranked most frequently in the visible section of Google’s mobile News Boxes, measured in 15-minute intervals from September 1, 2024, the starting week of the season, to February 15, 2025, the week of Super Bowl LIX. All keywords were selected based on strict relevance to the NFL, excluding unrelated terms such as college football or other sports, and span a variety of topics, including teams, players, coaches, matchups, the Super Bowl, and general NFL terms. The list is sorted in descending order by total ranking count, with the most frequently ranked keyword at the top.

Together, these 100 keywords amassed a total of 425,497 rankings, offering a broad yet revealing snapshot of the season’s media landscape. From breakout players and dominant teams to weekly narratives and postseason drama, the list reflects not just what happened on the field, but what consistently captured editorial attention in Google’s mobile News Boxes.

What becomes immediately clear is the range of entry points into NFL coverage: from team names and player headlines to week-by-week updates, matchups, and Super Bowl-related searches. Some keywords stood out due to sheer scale, like “nfl” itself, with over 150,000 rankings, while others broke through by tapping into key moments, rivalries, or unexpected storylines.

To understand the dynamics behind this visibility, the keywords are broken down in the sections that follow into thematic categories: teams, players and coaches, general NFL terms, matchups, and the Super Bowl. After each, we’ll also examine which publishers and platforms led the way in visibility, providing a deeper look into who shaped the season’s news coverage.

Let’s start this analysis off by looking at who led the field in terms of overall visibility for the 2024/25 NFL season.

Top publishers and platforms for the 2024-25 NFL season

The graph below from the Trisolute News Dashboard shows which publishers and platforms secured the most visibility across all 100 keywords, offering a first glimpse into who dominated NFL coverage throughout the season. Note: All weeks referenced in this article refer to ISO calendar weeks (e.g., Week 36 = Sep 1–7, 2024), not NFL game weeks. This allows for consistent measurement across the entire season timeframe.

Top 10 publishers and platforms for 100 most ranked keywords of the 2024/25 NFL season

1. ESPN
   With the highest overall visibility across all publishers and platforms, ESPN reached an average of 10.44% across the season. Their peak came during the Divisional Round (Week 3, 2025), when visibility hit 15.18%, fueled by coverage of the Eagles’ 22–10 win over the Packers. Their lowest point came two weeks later, during Pro Bowl week (Week 5, 2025), with 7.64%. ESPN ranked for 37,856 total keywords, led by top performers “nfl” (16,712 rankings), “cowboys” (1,083), “eagles” (889), “chiefs” (874), and “ravens” (790). Their most visible article over the season wasn’t game-related but injury-focused: “Texans’ Dell suffers ‘significant’ knee injury on TD,” showing how breaking news stories can drive visibility even outside peak matchups.
2. NFL
   The NFL’s official website, NFL.com, maintained a strong 9.04% visibility share, with its highest performance right at the beginning of the season (Week 36, 2024), when it peaked at 11.1%. That week’s most visible article covered Packers quarterback Jordan Love suffering a leg injury in a loss to the Eagles. The platform’s visibility dipped to a season-low of 6.92% during Super Bowl week (Week 7, 2025). In total, NFL.com achieved 44,482 keyword rankings, with its top five being “nfl” (34,338), “cowboys” (465), “ravens” (389), “eagles” (348), and “lions” (340). Their most visible article overall came during the playoffs: “Steelers-Ravens on Wild Card Weekend Saturday: What We Learned from Baltimore’s win.”
3. YouTube
   YouTube’s average visibility came in at 8.29%, with a dramatic rise toward the end of the season. Its peak came during the Divisional Round (Week 3, 2025), when visibility surged to 14.78%. The top video during that period was “A Commanders & Buccaneers Fan Reaction to the Wild Card Round” by Tom Grossi, showing the platform’s strength in fan and creator-led content. Its lowest visibility (1.26%) occurred in Week 36, 2024, the starting week of the season. Across the entire season, YouTube secured 45,035 keyword rankings. Its top five keywords were “nfl” (17,125), “cowboys” (1,786), “giants” (1,287), “chiefs” (1,184), and “49ers” (1,085). The most visible video overall was another creator skit: “Myles Garrett Requests a Trade. Where Will He End Up?,” published by BenchwarmerBran.
4. Twitter/X
   Twitter (now X) maintained 7.72% visibility on average, with a strong peak during Week 15 of the regular season (Dec 15–21, 2024), where it hit 10.12%. The most visible post that week came from the Ravens, promoting their home game with a sponsored post by Southwest Airlines. Their lowest point was during Super Bowl week (Week 7, 2025), with just 3.9% visibility, reflecting the shift toward publisher content during major events. X achieved 46,772 keyword rankings. Its top five were “nfl” (17,273), “chiefs” (1,946), “eagles” (1,806), “ravens” (1,210), and “cowboys” (1,196). The most visible post overall came from Dolphins’ wide receiver Tyreek Hill’s account: “Boss man got to come out with some new lyrics now,” a reminder of how much public interest is on the NFL players throughout the season.
5. CBS Sports
   CBS Sports earned 5.86% visibility across the season. Its strongest week came just before the regular season’s midpoint (Week 45, 2024, Nov 3–9), reaching 8.34%, thanks to its live coverage of the trade deadline, particularly the article “2024 NFL trade deadline live updates: Tracking the latest rumors, buzz and news in final hours to make deals.” Like others, CBS saw its lowest point during Super Bowl week (Week 7, 2025), dropping to 3.11%. It registered 22,065 keyword rankings in total, with its top five being “nfl” (9,689), “cowboys” (626), “giants” (479), “jets” (416), and “ravens” (376). The top-performing article overall focused on a bold quote from Micah Parsons: “Cowboys All-Pro Micah Parsons claims he would take less money on new deal to play with Myles Garrett.”
6. Yahoo
   Yahoo averaged 5.65% visibility and peaked early in the regular season (Week 38, 2024, Sep 15–21) at 8.02%. Its top article at that time—“NFL Winners and Losers: Cowboys crushed at home by Saints, and here comes the panic”—demonstrates how strong editorial opinions can generate traffic. Its lowest visibility came during Pro Bowl week (Week 6, 2025), when it dropped to 2.76%. Yahoo amassed 20,697 keyword rankings across the season. The top five were “nfl” (6,750), “chiefs” (687), “cowboys” (625), “fantasy football” (548), and “lions” (498). Their best-performing article of the season came from playoff coverage: “Commanders-Lions: Jayden Daniels, Washington pull off one of NFL’s greatest playoff upsets in 45-31 shootout win over Detroit.”
7. USA Today
   In 7th place, USA Today recorded 4.06% visibility, peaking during Wild Card Weekend (Week 2, 2025) at 5.31%. That visibility spike was tied to a service-oriented article featuring a Printable NFL playoff bracket—a clear example of how utility content performs well around key events. Their visibility dipped to 2.79% during Super Bowl week (Week 7, 2025). They generated 14,928 keyword rankings in total. The top five were “nfl” (3,224), “nfl playoff schedule” (652), “cowboys” (419), “chiefs” (408), and “49ers” (381). Their most visible article overall focused on Texans wide receiver Tank Dell: “Tank Dell injury: Updates, return date, what to know about Texans WR.”
8. Sports Illustrated
   Sports Illustrated maintained a 3.85% visibility rate over the course of the season and reached 8th place among all publishers and platforms. Its peak occurred in mid-November (Week 47, 2024), with 5.88% visibility. That week’s standout article featured a post-game moment between Mahomes and Allen. Its visibility dropped to just 1.16% in late January (Week 5, 2025). In total, SI reached 13,577 keyword rankings, and its top five keywords were “nfl” (1,991), “jets” (558), “giants” (361), “lions” (340), and “bears” (339). The outlet’s most visible article over the course of the entire season focused on commentary drama: “Mike Valenti Rips Aidan Hutchinson Comments about Myles Garrett.”
9. New York Post
   The New York Post averaged 2.75% visibility, peaking during Conference Championship week (Week 5, 2025) with 4.82%. That spike came from a sensational story: “Reporter got ‘creepy’ Justin Tucker tip before disturbing sexual misconduct accusations.” This article also marked the most visible one of the entire season. The Post’s lowest point was at the very start of the season (Week 36, 2024), when it reached just 1.45%. Over the season, they registered 8,941 keyword rankings. Their top five were “nfl” (2,336), “giants” (721), “jets” (628), “bill belichick” (353), and “aaron rodgers” (278). Their focus on local teams and off-field controversy helped them remain relevant despite lower overall volume.
10. Fox News
    Last but certainly not least, Fox News reached 10th place by holding 2.79% visibility throughout the season. Their peak came during the holidays (Week 16, 2024), hitting 5.33%, driven by a highly emotional story: “Texans’ Tank Dell sustains gruesome leg injury, leaving teammates in tears”—which was also their top-performing article overall. Their visibility was lowest back in early November (Week 45, 2024), falling to 1.66%. Fox registered 9,359 keyword rankings in total. Their top five were “nfl” (4,445), “chiefs” (377), “eagles” (330), “cowboys” (295), and “super bowl” (253). With a strong preference for impact-driven stories and key player events, Fox seems to have positioned itself more around peak moments than week-to-week coverage.

With the full-season keyword landscape and the most visible publishers and platforms established, it’s time to take a closer look at the different types of content that drove this visibility. To do so, the top 100 keywords have been sorted into five thematic categories: teams, players and coaches, general NFL terms, matchups, and Super Bowl-related queries.

For each of these, we’ll not only examine the content itself but also take a look at which publishers (this time only focusing on actual news publishers and excluding social platforms) were most visible within that subset of keywords. While this doesn’t reflect the full spectrum of coverage on those topics—it’s limited to the portion of keywords that made it into the overall top 100—it still highlights who dominated the most searched-for and ranked terms within each theme.

Team coverage

Top keywords of NFL teams

With 53 keywords and 188,152 rankings (that’s just over 45% of the total), the Teams category takes up by far the largest share of the top 100 NFL keywords for the 2024-25 season. It includes all NFL franchises from last season except two: the Tennessee Titans and the Arizona Cardinals. While both certainly appeared in US mobile News Boxes at various points, their coverage didn’t produce enough rankings to place them among the top 100 keywords overall.

When examining the keyword list more closely, one aspect stands out: the team with the highest visibility wasn’t the Eagles or Chiefs, both Super Bowl contenders, but none other than the Dallas Cowboys—“America’s Team,” or perhaps more accurately, America’s most hated team (depending on who you ask). Last season delivered no shortage of headlines surrounding the Cowboys: missing the playoffs for the first time since 2020, Dak Prescott’s struggles and injury, and the exit of head coach Mike McCarthy. Publishers who leaned into Cowboys coverage reaped the benefit, proving once again that controversy often outranks championships in search visibility. Cue the Stephen A. Smith trolling and the eternal “it’s our year” Cowboys memes. There’s even a German word for it: Schadenfreude.

Though outranked by the Cowboys, the Chiefs still came in strong, driven by their Super Bowl win and season-long attention around star players Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce—the latter bolstered by his highly publicized relationship with global superstar Taylor Swift. The 49ers, Lions, and Ravens also saw strong visibility thanks to deep postseason runs. Meanwhile, the Jets stayed in the spotlight largely due to continued media fascination with Aaron Rodgers’ anticipated comeback.

Another notable takeaway: short forms of team names (without the city or region) performed significantly better than their full-name counterparts. For example, “cowboys” alone received 12,457 rankings, while “dallas cowboys” added up to just 2,323. Similarly, “chiefs” brought in 11,376, compared to only 2,125 for “kansas city chiefs.” This pattern held true across the board, highlighting that publishers—and likely audiences—default to shorthand team references. In terms of news SEO, brevity continues to dominate.

Most visible publishers for NFL team keywords

The following chart shows which news publishers were most visible in the mobile News Boxes for keywords related to NFL teams based on the subset of team-related keywords from the overall Top 100. Twitter/X, YouTube, and NFL.com were excluded from this view in order to focus specifically on editorial outlets. For reference, these platforms would have ranked among the top performers with the following visibility shares: Twitter/X with 9.18% visibility, YouTube with 7.05%, and NFL.com with 4.59%.

Top 5 publishers for keywords that fell under the category “NFL teams” for the 2024/25 season

Like it was the case for all 100 most ranked NFL keywords, ESPN led the way with 9.27% visibility for team-related keywords, peaking during the Divisional Round (Week 3, 2025) with an article speculating on the Cowboys’ coaching situation. Yahoo followed with 5.62%, reaching its high point around Thanksgiving (Week 48, 2024) with postgame coverage of Dolphins vs. Packers. Sports Illustrated wasn’t far behind, peaking in Week 47, 2024, with a piece on Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen—a reminder that player rivalries continue to drive engagement. USA Today stood out early in the season (Week 37, 2024) with coverage of the 49ers’ quarterback plans, while CBS Sports hit its peak just before the playoffs (Week 52, 2024), reporting on Jalen Hurts’ concussion and its implications for the Eagles’ matchup against the Cowboys.

Player and coach coverage

Top keywords of players and coaches

With 18 keywords and just under 39,000 rankings, the Players & Coaches category makes up the second-largest share of top NFL keyword themes—not by total visibility, but by breadth. It’s a reminder that while team allegiance fuels much of the coverage, individual names continue to command strong SEO traction, particularly when big personalities or pivotal moments are involved.

And when it comes to individual names, the keyword rankings delivered a surprise. You might expect stars like Aaron Rodgers or Travis Kelce to lead the way, but the name with the most rankings went to Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill, with 3,852. He was followed by Myles Garrett, Bill Belichick, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes—showing that standout performances, controversies, and constant media attention can elevate players like Hill and Garrett above even the league’s most recognizable stars.

Belichick’s place in the top three—despite sitting out the 2024–25 season—underscores the media frenzy surrounding his decision to take over as head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, his first foray into the college ranks. His off-field life also kept him in the spotlight. Likewise, Pete Carroll (2,110) surged in visibility after the Las Vegas Raiders appointed him head coach, making him the oldest in NFL history to start a season on the sidelines in 2025–26.

Aaron Rodgers’ recovery from last year’s season-ending Achilles rupture, and his long-awaited return, generated massive attention, making him one of the most closely watched players of the season The same goes for Travis Kelce, whose on-field presence was amplified by his high-profile relationship with Taylor Swift, bringing a pop culture crossover few NFL players can claim.

Rising talent also cracked the top ranks, though injury news often drives the most visibility. That was the case for Texans wide receiver, Tank Dell (2,100), whose season was cut short by another devastating season-ending injury in Week 16.

Unlike the Teams category, each player or coach was represented by a single keyword, with no short forms or naming variants, making visibility easy to compare directly. And the takeaway is clear: whether it’s a franchise legend stepping down, a rookie breaking out, or a superstar entangled in storylines far beyond the field, individual names hold lasting power in the News Box and often thrive on more than just stats.

Most visible publishers for NFL player and coach keywords

The following chart shows which news publishers were most visible in the mobile News Boxes for keywords related to NFL players and coaches, based on the relevant subset from the overall Top 100. YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram were excluded in order to focus exclusively on editorial outlets. For reference, these platforms would have had the following shares of visibility: YouTube with 8.65%, Reddit with 6.39%, and Instagram with 4.37%.

Top 5 publishers for keywords that fell under the category “Players and coaches” for the 2024/25 season

ESPN once again led the field among news publishers with 8.06% visibility for player and coach keywords, peaking in mid-October (Week 42, 2024) at 15.99%. That spike was driven by coverage of the Jets’ reunion of Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams—a storyline that blended both star power and speculation. CBS Sports followed with 5.79%, reaching its peak just one week later (Week 43) with a 22.27% visibility boost tied to trade deadline rumors surrounding Cooper Kupp and Matthew Stafford. The New York Post averaged 5.30% visibility and also peaked in Week 42 with off-field buzz—namely, an article reporting that Davante Adams was living with Aaron Rodgers after a Jets trade, a detail tailor-made for headline traction.

Yahoo came in at 4.70% visibility, hitting its high during the season’s opening week (Week 36, 2024) with an article titled “Travis Kelce’s Team Lawyers Up Over Viral Taylor Swift Breakup ‘Contract’”—proof that pop culture crossovers can drive momentum, even in the sports category. Finally, USA Today posted a steady 4.29%, peaking during the same week as CBS (Week 43) with a piece outlining the best wide receiver fits ahead of the trade deadline.

General NFL/football terms

Top general NFL/football keywords

With just 14 keywords, the General NFL/football terms category amassed a massive 174,708 rankings—but the lion’s share of that comes from a single heavyweight: “nfl,” which alone accounted for 152,041 rankings. That means this one keyword made up more than 36% of all rankings across the top 100, and a staggering 87% of the rankings within this category. It’s by far the most visible keyword in the dataset, underlining the sheer dominance of the league’s brand as a catch-all term in news coverage. As a catch-all term, “nfl” is the go-to for game previews, league-wide news, injury updates, and broader coverage that doesn’t tie directly to specific teams or players. It’s a baseline keyword that shows up everywhere, and publishers clearly benefit from targeting it.

Another standout insight is the performance of week-specific searches. Seven “nfl week X” keywords made it into the top 100, collectively accounting for over 10,000 rankings. These searches reflect fans’ strong demand for timely updates on matchups, schedules, and weekly storylines. Among them, “nfl week 2” stood out with 1,864 rankings—more than any other week-related term. That week delivered a perfect mix of drama and surprise: the Jets, led by Zach Wilson, stunned the Bills; the Giants pulled off a historic comeback against the Cardinals; the Chiefs rebounded with a win over the Jaguars; and teams like the 49ers, Cowboys, and Ravens improved to 2–0, fueling early playoff chatter.

Beyond calendar-based interest, broader terms like “fantasy football,” “nfl playoff schedule,” and “nfl trade deadline” also performed well, showing a steady appetite for season-long planning, speculation, and player strategy. In short, general NFL terms—especially those tied to the structure and rhythm of the season—seem to have been consistent traffic magnets.

Most visible publishers for general NFL and football keywords

The chart below highlights which news publishers were most visible in the mobile News Boxes for the general NFL-related keywords that made it into the top 100—including broad terms like “nfl,” “fantasy football,” and “nfl week X.”  Once again, platforms such as NFL.com, YouTube, and Twitter/X were excluded in order to focus on editorial publishers. Notably, all three would have ranked among the top performers: NFL.com with 17.84% visibility, YouTube with 9.13%, and Twitter/X with 8.48%.

Top 5 publishers for keywords that fell under the category “General NFL and football terms” for the 2024/25 season

Like it has been the case with the previous categories as well as the overall keyword set, ESPN dominated this category with 12.65% visibility, peaking during Super Bowl week (Week 7, 2025) at 16.96%—largely thanks to forward-looking draft coverage with the article “Sanders or Ward? Hunter or Carter? NFL execs, scouts on the top of the draft class.” CBS Sports followed with 7.90%, hitting its high in early November (Week 45, 2024) through strong trade deadline coverage, particularly an article on 2024 NFL trade deadline live updates. Yahoo came in third with 5.68% and peaked in Week 38, 2024 (Sept 15–21) with its article “NFL Winners and Losers: Cowboys crushed at home by Saints”—the same article that also drove its visibility peak for all 100 keywords.

The Athletic, a first-time appearance in any category or the overall rankings, held 3.87%, with its peak also during trade deadline week, offering in-depth reporting and real-time grades for every deal and thus demonstrating the value of expert analysis around structured events. USA Today rounded out the top five with 3.14%, peaking during Wild Card week (Week 2, 2025) with its printable NFL playoff bracket article—notably, the same article that was USA Today’s most visible overall. This suggests that utility-focused, general-interest content performed especially well for them across the board.

Matchup coverage

Top keywords of NFL matchups

With 10 keywords and a total of 14,660 rankings, the Matchups category may be smaller in volume than others, but it highlights a key insight: specific games (not just teams) can drive significant search visibility, especially when rivalries or high stakes are involved.

Several regular season and playoff matchups broke into the Top 100, including familiar rivalries like Steelers vs Ravens, division clashes such as Chiefs vs Broncos, and key playoff games like Ravens vs Texans and Bills vs Chiefs. The latter—the AFC Championship showdown between the Bills and Chiefs—earned the highest number of rankings of any matchup keyword (2,763), showing how marquee matchups with playoff implications can dominate news interest.

What’s surprising, though, is what didn’t make the cut: the Super Bowl LIX matchup between the Eagles and Chiefs. Neither “eagles vs chiefs” nor “chiefs vs eagles” appeared in the top 100 keywords. Despite being the biggest game of the year, it seems the matchup itself didn’t gain as much direct keyword traction as expected. Instead, it was games earlier in the postseason—with high tension, historic rivalries, and more evenly matched anticipation—that drew more search attention.

This underlines a broader takeaway: in search visibility, timing, narrative, and drama can sometimes outweigh the spotlight itself. A regular season rematch, a divisional grudge game, or a conference title bout may resonate more with audiences than even the Super Bowl, depending on the storylines attached. For publishers, it’s a reminder that leaning into the emotional stakes of specific matchups—especially those with history—can be just as powerful as covering the headline events.

Most visible publishers for NFL matchup keywords

The following chart once again shows which news publishers were most visible in the mobile News Boxes for NFL matchup-related keywords—specifically the 10 terms that made it into the overall Top 100. Because this set covers only the most frequently ranked matchups, mostly from late in the season, visibility in the early weeks is nearly nonexistent. This trend reflects not only the narrowing scope of the keyword selection but also how news SEO for individual matchups seemed to ramp up significantly toward the postseason.

The final week with visible rankings for matchup-related keywords was Week 22 (Jan 26–Feb 1), just before the Super Bowl. Since the Super Bowl matchup between the Eagles and Chiefs didn’t make it into the top 100 keywords overall, it’s not included in this analysis—which explains the lack of keyword visibility for matchups in the week of the Super Bowl itself.

For a more focused view on editorial performance, YouTube (14.93%) and NFL.com (5.55%) were excluded from this section.

Top 5 publishers for keywords that fell under the category “NFL matchups” for the 2024/25 season

ESPN again led the field with 12.71% visibility, peaking dramatically in Week 51 (Dec 15–21, 2024) at 25.58%. The surge was driven by a highly visible recap of the Ravens’ 34–17 win over the Steelers—one of the highest-ranked matchups of the season, reflecting the enduring SEO power of divisional rivalries. Yahoo followed with 8.98%, boosted in Week 46 (Nov 10–16, 2024) by coverage of the Chiefs vs. Broncos—specifically a dramatic article highlighting Kansas City’s blocked game-winning field goal, which helped maintain their undefeated streak. CBS Sports also hit its peak in the same week, reaching 15.38% visibility with a matchup-focused preview article offering betting odds and predictions for that same Chiefs-Broncos showdown. Together, these examples show how high-stakes regular season games can deliver strong, search-optimized performance even before the playoffs.

USA Today recorded 5.62%, peaking at the very start of the season (Week 36, Sep 1–7) with its recap of the international matchup between the Eagles and Packers in Brazil—a game that stood out more for its novelty than for direct playoff implications, yet still gained significant traction. Sports Illustrated rounded out the top 5 with 3.31% visibility, reaching its high in Week 52 (Dec 22–28) with a piece on the Texans’ struggles in a blowout loss to the Ravens. The article’s emotional tone and critical framing likely contributed to its search visibility, emphasizing how narrative-driven angles can boost performance even for lopsided matchups.

Super Bowl coverage

Top keywords for Super Bowl LIX

With just 5 keywords and a total of 8,987 rankings, the Super Bowl LIX category highlights a surprising reality: even the biggest event of the NFL season doesn’t necessarily dominate search visibility, at least not in the context of the entire season’s news cycle.

Super Bowl LIX, held on February 9, 2025, was included in the analysis timeframe, which extended through the following week. Yet only a handful of keywords made it into the top 100: broad searches like “super bowl” and “super bowl 2025,” question-based queries such as “what time is the super bowl,” and team-focused terms like “super bowl chiefs.” Even the final score itself drove over a thousand rankings via “super bowl score,” but no individual player names or team-vs-team matchups related to the game made the cut.

This relatively modest showing underlines an important point: the Super Bowl is just one moment in a season filled with ongoing storylines. Its cultural weight is massive, but from a news SEO perspective, it can’t match the cumulative volume of team coverage, player narratives, or week-by-week developments that unfold across nearly six months. While the game itself may draw the biggest single-day audience, in terms of search-driven visibility, it’s the season-long arcs that truly dominate.

Most visible publishers for Super Bowl LIX keywords

The following chart shows which news publishers were most visible in the mobile News Boxes for keywords related to the Super Bowl, based on the subset of five keywords that made it into the overall top 100. As with the Matchups section, it’s important to note that this analysis only reflects the most visible keywords tied to the Super Bowl—terms that generated enough volume throughout the season to land in the overall top 100. Coverage that didn’t meet that threshold (e.g., team-vs-team matchups, specific player queries) is not represented here.

Because the Super Bowl is a single-event moment at the end of the season, visibility tied to these keywords was especially concentrated toward the final weeks. No matchup-specific terms like “eagles vs chiefs” made the cut, so visibility for the game itself was largely driven by more general or peripheral keywords. This limited keyword set creates a narrow lens, but one that still highlights the types of Super Bowl coverage that performed best in mobile News Boxes. For a more in-depth analysis of Super Bowl LIX, check out this article.

YouTube (9.80%) and Reddit (4.13%) were once again excluded from this analysis to keep the focus on news publishers.

Top 5 publishers for keywords that fell under the category “Super Bowl” for the 2024/25 season

As with all other categories, ESPN led the pack with 9.75% visibility across the five Super Bowl-related keywords, peaking in Week 3, 2025, at 26.67% visibility, by far the highest visibility among all publishers. Their standout article focused on increased security measures at the event: “NFL, feds tighten Super Bowl security after attack.” Yahoo followed with 6.27% visibility and reached its high in Week 4 (Jan 19–25), driven by pre-event speculation in “Ranking the potential Super Bowl matchups: Chiefs, Eagles, Bills, Commanders.”

USA Today took third with 5.97%, peaking much earlier in Week 45 (Nov 3–9). Their most successful article at that time was titled “Ranking 10 2024 Super Bowl contenders at the NFL season’s halfway point,” demonstrating that visibility for a specific event can already be achieved way before it has even started. Fox News held 4.06%, also peaking in Week 45, with an article on how the NFL trade deadline reshaped the Super Bowl landscape. The New York Post followed closely at 4.00%, with a peak in Week 7 (Feb 9–15), the actual week of the Super Bowl. Their most visible article, however, was anything but conventional: “Cardi B blames Trump for ruining her shoes at the Super Bowl, demands he bring back her deported uncle”—a headline that underscores the entertainment crossover the game can inspire.

Key takeaways: How publishers won the NFL news cycle for the 2024-25 season

After all of this, you surely still haven’t gotten enough of our news SEO analyses, right? If you want more, these pieces could might also enjoy:

• Super Bowl LIX: Which Publishers Were Mobile News Box Champions?
• Super Bowl Betting: How US Publishers Ranked
• 2025 NFL Free Agency: ESPN Leads Early Visibility Race as Legal Tampering Heats Up
• 2025 NBA Draft: Top Picks and Publishers in US Mobile News Boxes
• Social Media’s Rise in Search: Why AI Is Not the Only Google Visibility Threat News Publishers Face

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