World Cup Expected To See Most Social Media Mentions Of Any Sporting Event

As the World Cup kicks off in Brazil, it is clear that much more than teams’ rosters have changed over the last four years. Rather, the means through which humans across the world communicate have drastically changed since soccer last stood on its biggest stage in 2010. Think about this: When the 2010 World Cup kicked off, Facebook was two years away from going public, Pinterest was a mere two months old and Instagram didn’t exist. Four years later, the biggest scorer of the 2014 World Cup may not be on the field, but rather, inside of the social media channels activating around the event.

Experts expect that this year’s World Cup will be the most social sporting event in history. According to Adobe Digital Index’s senior analyst, Joe Martin, it is expected that more social media posts will be made about the World Cup than the Super Bowl or Sochi Winter Olympics. Martin notes that since June 2013, there have been 19 million social mentions including the phrase “World Cup.” The number is higher than the number of mentions for the Super Bowl and Sochi Winter Olympics leading up to each event, respectively. ”If you look at the 2014 World Cup, Sochi Winter Olympics and Super Bowl six months prior to each event, projections show the World Cup is looking to surpass both of those events. The term ‘World Cup’ is averaging 500,000 mentions per day. If that rate remains, it will surpass the Sochi Winter Olympics in terms of mentions in June,” Martin said.