NEW YORK—The 2014 World Cup that culminated in Germany’s squeaker over a crestfallen Argentina broke all types of media usage records, including tweets, Facebook mentions, and streaming on non-TV devices. The final game on Sunday when Germany took all the marbles in the final minutes peaked on Twitter with 618,725 tweets per minute, while Facebook reported that 88 million users mentioned the match more than 280 million times, according to George Winslow of B&C.
In terms of streaming, the round-of-16 fall of USA to Belgium on July 1 became the most-streamed event in the United States, with 5.3 million unique viewers for ESPN and Univision platforms, according to FIFA. (By comparison, 16.5 million viewers watched the game on ESPN and 5.1 million on Univision.)
According to Verizon Digital Media Services, the majority of that so-called second-screen viewing was mobile, with the iPhone being the dominant mobile viewing device. Android devices pulled in 28 percent of second-screen viewing, while the iPad snagged 11 percent. Desktop viewing comprised 15.2 percent (even though the game was on a Sunday rather than a workday), with Apple TV rounding out 5.2 percent, leaving 0.3 percent on miscellaneous devices.
