It’s been a little less than a week since the World Cup ended. Germans have been rejoicing, Argentinians have been lamenting, and there are probably more than a few 4-year fans who have already forgotten that the World Cup happened. This was a record year for the World Cup. Miroslav Klose became the all-time leading World Cup goal-scorer with 16, Germany’s whopping 7 goals in the semi-final with Brazil, The 171 goals that tied 1998 for most goals in a single tournament, and Tim Howard’s 16 saves against Belgium. It was definitely an impressive tournament, but the people watching the World Cup broke records too. This year’s World Cup blew up social media records.
There were a record 618,725 tweets per minute during the final match. That’s over 10,000 tweets per second! The World Cup final put up record numbers on Facebook as well. There were 280 million interactions between 88 million users during the game. There were over 27 million US viewers that tuned in to watch the final in a tournament that proved to be one of the most watched and responded to of all time.
Below you can see a shot or two from Contributor Day at WordCamp Kansas City, just one of the millions of places where people took time to enjoy the final.
In the past the World Cup was something that the rest of the world shut down for while the U.S. tolerated it. However, this year’s tournament saw a huge increase in U.S. fan support especially through social media. People who didn’t know that the World Cup was happening until it popped up on their news feed suddenly found themselves to be enthusiasts. Through likes, tweets, shares, and retweets, soccer found a new home in the United States. Or did soccer only crash on the couch for the past month?
There’s no question that the World Cup was a big deal in the U.S. this year, but whether or not the new-found support will be lasting is more than questionable. There’s always a honeymoon stage. Was the past soccer-filled month more than enough for temporary fans or is it true love?
Luckily we will have opportunities between now and 2018 to find out. With next summer’s Gold Cup and Women’s World Cup, 2016’s Copa America being hosted in the U.S., and 2017’s World Cup qualifying matches, there are ample opportunities to keep interest in U.S. soccer going.
None of these events will have the same reach, impact or interest, as the insanely huge World Cup, but they will be a good way to measure interest. We won’t see the record-breaking numbers on social media that we have seen this summer, but we will be able to see if here is still some US interest.
It’s not everyday that you have an event make such a huge impact on social media. Maybe it’s only every four years. The World Cup obliterated social media records, and it would be great if that enthusiasm was here to stay. Everyone jumped off a bridge during this summer’s World Cup. Over the next four summers we will see if anyone decided to stay and play in the water.
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