The Philadelphia Eagles are the Super Bowl LIX champs, but which news publisher won the competitive battle for Google visibility? We analyzed the Mobile News Box visibility data on Super Bowl Sunday with the Trisolute News Dashboard to determine the top performers.

We used a set of 20 keywords for the analysis, based on Google Trends and Google News activity.

Keyword Analysis

Sports-focused: The keyword “nfl” had the most rankings (744) on Super Bowl Sunday when analyzing by Mobile News Box visibility. The teams playing in the big game followed in visibility. The keyword “eagles” with 709 rankings beat the keyword “chiefs” with 687 rankings in Mobile News Box visibility rankings. It’s interesting to note that the abbreviated versions of the team names generated slightly more rankings than the formal names of the teams, with the keyword “philadelphia eagles” generating 666 Mobile News Box rankings and “kansas city chiefs” generating 661 Mobile News Box rankings.

Regarding search visibility for the event name, an interesting development was the rise in popularity of the keyword “super bowl lix” which wasn’t as popular in the week leading up to the Super Bowl but was the top performer on Super Bowl Sunday. In the week before the Super Bowl, more people searched for “super bowl 2025” with 4161 rankings vs “super bowl” with 4026 rankings. In third place was “super bowl new orleans” with 3631 rankings.

While Super Bowl LIX is the official name of the sports championship, it was not as popular of a search term, earning 2879 rankings on mobile in the week before the game. However, things changed on game day, with “super bowl lix” earning 544 rankings in Mobile News Box visibility, making it the top performer vs “super bowl 59” with 503 rankings and “super bowl 2025” with 464 rankings. This rise in visibility may be due to the Super Bowl LIX branding that was promoted during the pregame broadcast show and online.

Entertainment-focused: The keyword “super bowl halftime” generated the most Mobile News Box rankings (622), followed by “kendrick lamar” with 570 rankings.

For the ever-popular commercials that air during the Super Bowl, the keyword “super bowl ads” with 351 Mobile News Box rankings just edged out the keyword “super bowl commercials” with 347 Mobile News Box rankings.

Mobile News Box Visibility

Top news publishers in Mobile News Box visibility on Google on Super Bowl Sunday.

Top overall news publishers in Mobile News Box visibility:

The Athletic: Sunday morning was when The Athletic earned the bulk of their Mobile News Box visibility rankings, pulling well ahead of the competition from about 5 a.m. through noon. After that, the competition in visibility heated up. The Athletic’s live blog was their top performer.

USA Today: Ahead of the game, USA Today maintained fairly stable visibility in the Mobile News Box, and earned a nice spike in visibility around 7 p.m., shortly after kick off. USA Today crushed the competition in topic authority for the keyword “super bowl 59” scoring 126 Mobile News Box rankings. USA Today also performed well for the keyword “super bowl tickets” and that keyword was also related to their top article: Super Bowl 59 ticket prices: Cost, what to know about buying for Chiefs vs Eagles.

ESPN: For ESPN, keywords related to the Eagles were their top performers: “philadelphia eagles” with 75 rankings, “eagles” with 68 rankings, and “super bowl eagles” with 42 rankings. ESPN’s live blog was their top-performing article.

Fox News: Fox demonstrated topic authority for the keyword “super bowl lix” with 105 Mobile News Box rankings which perhaps is not surprising since they were the game broadcaster. Fox News saw a bump in Mobile News Box visibility during Sunday morning and early afternoon, and then once again during the game. We also looked at foxsports.com, which generated 68 Mobile News Box rankings. The top article for Fox News was Eagles fly to win Super Bowl LIX, unseating two-time defending champion Chiefs.

CNN: It wasn’t until Sunday evening that CNN’s visibility in the Mobile News Box took off, and then it skyrocketed to first place by 9 p.m. It’s not entirely clear from the data what prompted this dramatic spike in visibility. Live updates: Philadelphia Eagles beat Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX was CNN’s top article.

Why does “superb owl” become a trending search term during the Super Bowl? 

Credit: EpicCoyoteFish, imgur.com

It’s the typo in a search query that has spawned an enduring meme, a dedicated subreddit, and bird lovers everywhere to rejoice on Super Bowl Sunday. Google now autocorrects the search, though it’s interesting to note that Bing does not. “Superb owl” has dug its claws into internet lore and is a welcome respite for the portion of the population who doesn’t give a hoot about a football game.

When checking out the “superb owl” search query on Super Bowl Sunday, Google provided the game day information box as well as an owl-themed Top Stories News Box on the desktop SERP.  On the mobile SERP there was a similar treatment. Note: the screengrab below is from Monday’s mobile SERP.

Winning insights:

• The keyword “super bowl” didn’t generate a Top Stories News Box on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday. Instead, there was a Super Bowl game preview information widget and a People Also Ask box below it.
• During the game, a Top Stories News Box did appear, but it was placed below Google’s Super Bowl game widget and a “Posts on X” carousel.
• The morning after the Super Bowl, the top rising query was “serena williams super bowl” as there was a lot of buzz generated about her surprise cameo during the halftime show. 
• Live blogs were a top performer for multiple publishers during the Super Bowl. 
• ESPN led in visibility and rankings for overall mobile performance in the week before the Super Bowl. 
• In Mobile News Box visibility, the Eagles dominated the Chiefs just like they did during the game itself with 1885 total rankings vs. 1585 for the Chiefs.
• X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit appeared in the top 10 for Mobile News Box rankings on Super Bowl Sunday. X generated the most rankings, which is likely due in part to Google including a Posts on X carousel on the SERP during the game. Reddit earned most of its visibility for keywords related to the halftime show.

Interested in more sports-related news SEO insights? Check out one of our recent analysis articles:

• Australian Open: Which Australian Publishers Served an Ace?
• A cross-country analysis of the top-ranked sports keywords and most visible publishers in Germany, the UK, and the U.S. in 2024
• An in-depth analysis of how UK publishers captured visibility around the final race of the 2024 F1 season at the Abu Dhabi GP
• An analysis of the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship for UK publishers

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