Women's World Cup By Social Media, Compensation Numbers
By Edward Cardenas
SOUTHFIELD (CBS Detroit) - The U.S. Women's National Soccer Team played before more than 50,000 fans in Vancouver when it won the World Cup, but on social media, millions took part in the team's historic victory.
Soccer fans around the world took to Facebook and Twitter to discuss the game and celebrate the team's third World Cup championship.
During the nearly month-long tournament, Twitter reported that there were 9 billion impressions of Tweets about the Women's World Cup.
The top match of the of the tournament was the final between the United States and Japan.
Other matches which received significant traffic were Japan's last-minute victory over England on an own-goal and Germany's victory over France on penalty kicks.
The most talked about player during the tournament was Carli Lloyd, who topped off the World Cup with a final game hat trick which included a goal scored from midfield.
Not surprising, the United States was the top team on Twitter, followed by Japan and Germany.
Nine million Facebook users took to the social network during World Cup final, producing 20 million interactions.
Similar to Twitter, Lloyd generated the most buzz on Facebook and the United States generated the most buzz about the match.
Facebook also looked at its user data, and found that women 25-34 were the top demographic segment discussing the World Cup Final.
As fans commented on social networks about the game, they were setting a record with viewership on television. CBS reports that 26.7 million viewers watched the game on Fox and Telemundo. This was greater than the 26.5 million who watched Germany beat Argentina in last year's men's World Cup final.
While the U.S. Women's Team topped Germany in viewership, the winner of the men's World Cup far outpaces the women's World Cup in payout. Germany received $35 million, according to USA Today, while the U.S. Women's National Team will receive only $2 million.
