Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has come out with its own FIFA dream team with the 11 most popular players on the site. Stars like Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Neymar Junior are the forwards. The other members consist of the most discussed player on the micro-blogging site over the past three months like Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas, Brazil midfielders David Luiz and Daniel Alves, and Mesut Ozil from Germany.
Twitter a popular platform for sports
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) reported that World cup tweets are way higher compared to the last World Cup held in 2010, which is why this will be the most social World Cup, and is due to kick off just 9 days from now.
According to Alex Trickett, head of Sport at Twitter UK, live coverage of football matches clubbed with hype and post match analysis plays a bigger role on Twitter, making sports seven of the ten most talked about moments in 2013.
Out of the 32 teams in the World Cup this year, 30 have their Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) accounts. The most-followed teams are Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, United States, Spain and Japan. Furthermore, more than 300 players from 32 competing nations have Twitter accounts which fans can follow.
Users generally head to Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) for posting breaking news and sharing exclusive content. Around 54% of football fans agreed that news breaks faster on Twitter. The latest data from @Neilsen suggested that 50% of Tweets on the TV in 2013 were sports related and 492 million Tweets sent in 2013 were of sports event.
England’s team popular
England posted its provisional England national team on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) last month through its official handle @England account. Within half an hour the message was re-tweeted more than 16,000 times, and has been re-tweeted 25,000 times to date.
More than half of England’s final 23-man squad are on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), a full list of @England players on Twitter can be found here. The top five most-followed members of the final 23-man squad are: Wayne Rooney (with 8.75 million followers), Phil Jones (with 1.49 million), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (with 1.46 million), Jack Wilshere (with 1.27 million) and Glen Johnson (with 972K).
The official hashtags for the 2014 World Cup are #WorldCup and #Brazil2014. The #3Lions is the hashtag chosen by @England’s fans.
