Super Bowl, Madonna Set New Sport, Entertainment Twitter Records [STATS]

The closing moments of Super Bowl XLVI, which saw the New York Giants come from behind to edge the New England Patriots 21-17 with a last-minute touchdown, were so dramatic that they set a new tweets per second (TPS) record on Twitter.

The final three minutes of the Super Bowl saw Twitter users firing off tweets at an average of 10,000 per second, which is an all-time peak for a sporting event on the network.

Twitter confirmed the news in a series of post-game tweets.

In the final three minutes of the Super Bowl tonight, there were an average of 10,000 Tweets per second.

— Twitter (@twitter) February 6, 2012

Activity peaked at a heady 12,233 TPS at the very end of the game. Madonna’s half-time performance peaked at 10,245 TPS, which is also a record for live entertainment.

The highest Tweets per second #SuperBowl peak came at the end of the game: 12,233. 2nd highest was during Madonna’s performance: 10,245. — Twitter (@twitter) February 6, 2012

Overall, Madonna’s half-time performance saw an average of 8,000 TPS over five minutes.

Madonna’s performance during the Super Bowl’s halftime show saw an average of 8,000 Tweets per second for five minutes.

— Twitter (@twitter) February 6, 2012

Impressive as these numbers are, they’re still a long way short of Twitter’s all-time TPS benchmark. Back in December, the Japanese TV screening of 1986 animated movie Castle In The Sky triggered a 25,088 TPS response on the network which, strange as it was, is well over twice that of the Super Bowl, and likely won’t be beaten for some time.

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