Feb. 6, 2012 at 9:29 AM ET
Poor Tim Tebow. The starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos set a a Twitter record in the beginning of January and it's already defeated — by the Super Bowl.
According to Twitter, Super Bowl XLVI is the most tweeted sporting event ever. The big game averaged 10,000 tweets per second (TPS) in its final three minutes and peeked at 12,233 TPS.
The previous Twitter record — when it comes to TPS during a sporting event — was set when Tim Tebow's 80-yard touchdown pass in overtime gave the Denver Broncos a 29-23 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Jan. 8. At that time, the tweets were coming in at 9,420 TPS.
To further put all those numbers into context, here are some exceptionally high rates of tweets per second and the events which caused them:
- 8,868: Beyonce announces that she is pregnant at the MTV Music Awards
- 7,196: Japan defeats the United States in a women's World Cup match
- 6,049: The news of Steve Jobs' death breaks
- 5,530: The TPS peek rate during the Japanese earthquake and tsunami
- 5,500: The TPS rate during the East Coast earthquake in Aug. 2011
- 5,008: The news of Osama bin Laden's death breaks
- 4,064: The 2011 Super Bowl
- 3,966: The TPS peek rate during the Royal Wedding
- 3,283: Japan beats Denmark in the World Cup
While all those numbers are impressive, the all-time TPS record still remains at 25,088 — a bar set during a TV screening in Japan of Hayao Miyazaki’s Anime movie, "Castle in the Sky," on Dec. 9, 2011.
Related stories:
- The Pope explains the power — and danger — of Twitter
- How to easily circumvent Twitter's censorship
- Tourists banned from U.S. over Twitter jokes?
Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.