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Soccer fans set tweet-per-second record

Soccer viewers are leaving football watchers in the dust when it comes to tweeting during games.

Dara Kerr Former senior reporter
Dara Kerr was a senior reporter for CNET covering the on-demand economy and tech culture. She grew up in Colorado, went to school in New York City and can never remember how to pronounce gif.
Dara Kerr
2 min read

In the Twitter world of sports, soccer proves to be king. During the peak of the Champions League match between Barcelona and Chelsea in Barcelona yesterday, 13,684 tweets per second were sent out globally -- setting a Twitter record for tweets during a sporting event.

"The conversation reached its high point immediately following Fernando Torres' late goal, which tied the game and sealed Chelsea's victory in the semi-final," Twitter said in a blog post today.

This means that soccer fans have now beat out football fans on the social network. According to the blog post, the high mark of this year's Super Bowl was 12,233 tweets per second. That spike of tweets happened in the last three minutes of the game when the New York Giants scored a touchdown and won the game. Madonna's halftime show was also popular, peaking at 10,245 tweets per second.

But soccer remains the stronger Twitter hitter. Last July, a tweet-per-second record was previously set during the Women's World Cup final soccer match between the U.S. and Japan with 7,196 tweets per second.

This news also comes at the same time as Brazilian soccer player Kaka, who plays for Real Madrid, has been crowned as the first pro athlete to amass more than 10 million Twitter followers.

Sports aside, the overall tweet-per-second record was set last December during the television broadcast of the Japanese anime movie "Castle in the Sky," with 25,088 tweets. And Lady Gaga holds the title for having the most Twitter followers with more than 23 million fans.

This story was corrected at 1:15 p.m. April 26 with the correct location for the match.