World Cup bests Super Bowl on Twitter as Brazilians fidget with fingers during shootout
6/29/2014RIO DE JANEIRO — Nervous Brazilian soccer fans took to Twitter to breathe a collective sigh of relief Saturday, with the final, tense-filled minute of a penalty shootout against Chile generating more buzz online than Super Bowl.
Almost 389,000 tweets were generated in the minute after Chilean defender Gonzalo Jara’s penalty shot hit the right post and allowed Brazil to avoid an early exit from the World Cup that it’s hosting for the first time since 1950.
By contrast, the peak during this year’s Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos reached only 382,000, according to data compiled by the microblogging site.
Overall, 16.4 million tweets were generated during the match, the most-tweeted yet during the World Cup.