#SB45: @steelers vs @packers

By
Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Around this time of year, the conversation on Twitter turns to football –of the American variety– as people around the world begin talking about the Super Bowl.

Last year, during key moments of Super Bowl XLIV, about 40% of all Tweets were related to the game. As the game ended, this number was closer to 50%. This year, one-third of the players who were in the NFL playoffs are on Twitter. And, at some points during last Sunday’s AFC and NFC championship games, virtually all trends were football-related.

Today, we joined Visa and the NFL in announcing that we’re going to make it even easier to follow the conversation about Super Bowl XLV. Starting this morning, fans can visit www.nfl.com/visa to “Go Inside Super Bowl XLV With Visa,” a one-stop shop where they can experience Super Bowl XLV in real-time and see interesting Tweets from players, media, NFL personnel, fans and more.

The popularity of sports on Twitter isn’t unique to American football. Last summer’s World Cup set new records for the number of Tweets sent per second, and the final match represented the largest period of sustained activity for an event in Twitter’s history.

Now that we know the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers will play in Super Bowl XLV, the level of conversation is only going to grow. Both teams (@steelers and @packers) are active on Twitter, as are many of their star players, including James Harrison (@jharrison9292), Hines Ward (@mvp86hinesward) and Troy Polamalu (@tpolamalu) on the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers (@AaronRodgers12), Clay Matthews (@ClayMatthews52) and Nick Barnett (@NickBarnett) on the Packers.