INFOGRAPHIC: U.S. World Cup love affair grows stronger – even after elimination

The US public’s love affair with the World Cup continues, even after the national team’s elimination at the hands of Belgium. While some thought US interest in the tournament would fall away after the US Men’s National Team (USMNT) was sent packing, social media data gathered by theScore suggests the quite the opposite.

In fact, the average number of tweets sent by US fans per game, mentioning the World Cup, actually increased by 40% after the US squad left Brazil, confirming that fans continue to be gripped by the on-field action.

The data, provided courtesy of Sysomos, came from looking at tweets sent on the days the USMNT was not playing, to uncover general US interest in the tournament, with the average number taken by dividing the volume of tweets by the number of games taking place.

In total, US fans have so far sent 7.2M tweets about the World Cup since the start of the tournament on June 12, equaling 10,300 tweets a day.

The biggest winners on social media were members of the USMNT themselves, adding 3.4M followers from the start of the tournament as the US public got behind the team on their journey to the final 16.

Goalkeeper Tim Howard (@TimHowardGK) saw the biggest gain, adding more than half-a-million followers off the back of a series of MVP displays, including his record-breaking shot-stopping performance in the 2-1 loss to Belgium. Teenage goal scorer Julian Green (@J_Green37) also found himself catching the eye on social media after his super-sub appearance, growing his follower base by more than 400%. Landon Donovan’s (@landondonovan) controversial omission from the final squad was also enough to grow his own Twitter following by 129,000 during the tournament.

For more stats, check out the infographic below.