Despite blowout, Super Bowl sets Twitter record

This was the most tweeted Super Bowl yet, with 24M and a peak of 381K Tweets per minute

There are many words you can use to describe last night's Super Bowl. Some that spring to my mind right aware include "terrible" and "disgraceful" and "atrocious." Also, phrases, such as "worst ever" also spring up.

Unless you are a Seahawks fan, or you are a sadist, it's safe to say that probably got no pleasure out of watching a game in which a hapless Denver Broncos team just get absolutely trampled from the first play until the last, but at least we had a place to go vent about it while it was happening!

Despite the game being a blowout, and a game that was never even competitive in any sense of the word, this year's Super Bowl managed to surpass last year with a total of 24.9 millon tweets, making it the most tweeted Super Bowl yet. 

(Despite being a much closer game, last year had only 24.1 million Tweets. Maybe people turn to Twitter more than they are bored?)

As always, we can look to Twitter to see which moments caused the biggest stir. Not surprisingly, the top moment was the one that sealed the fate of the Broncos for good.

That would be Percy Harvin's 87 yard kickoff return for a touchdown, which opened up the third quarter and put the team up 29 to 0. That moment got 381,605 tweets per minute.

Coming in second, was Jermaine Kearse's 23-yard touchdown pass, also in the third quarter, which got 271,775 TPM. That moment just barely edged out Malcolm Smith's 69-yard interception return in the second quarter, which had 244,889 TPM.

Rounding out the top five moments were two from the halftime show:  229,533 TPM were sent out when it ended, and 215,540 TPM when the Red Hot Chili Peppers sang Give it Away.

How much more engaged were Twitter users this year compared to 2013? Last year's power outage was the biggest moment, with 231,500 TPM. 

So how does this year's event compare? It actually managed to outdo the 327,452 Tweets per minute during the night of President Obama's reelection in 2012, but couldn't match its 31 million total Tweets.

The most mentioned athletes in this year's Super Bowl were, by team: Percy Harvin, Richard Sherman (of course!) and Russell Wilson of the Seahawks; Peyton Manning, Eric Decker and Wes Welker from the Broncos. 

Also, I would remiss if I did not include at least some of snarky Tweets about the performance of the Broncos as the game went on.

Well that's one way to follow @BrunoMars. @Percy_Harvin TD! #SB48

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) February 3, 2014

This is what the @Broncos need to do in the second half: score. A lot. #SuperBowl #SB48

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) February 3, 2014

Denver Broncos just really, really eager to get home for Downton Abbey.

— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) February 3, 2014

The Broncos performance thus far summed up in one photo. pic.twitter.com/prpeboeXsc

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) February 3, 2014

A detailed analysis of how the live television broadcast performed on Twitter will be released tomorrow, and it will include data on the number of unique Twitter accounts that tweeted about the games and the live reach of the program.

(Image source: https://nypost.com)