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11/22/2024 03:23:30 am

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FIFA Report: United States Fans Dominate World Cup Online

American fans dominate the 2014 World Cup online, according to early tallies released by FIFA.

(Photo : Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

Team USA's World Cup dream may be over but online, fans across the United States have been tallying some really big figures, according to a partial report released by FIFA.

The unexpected advance of Team USA in the World Cup had sparked interest in the United States for the world's biggest sporting event.

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According to early tallies released by the World Cup's digital arm, 30 million American visitors logged on FIFA.com from June 1 to 26, making the country the biggest “footballing” nation in the world in terms of audience size.

Americans make up 20% of the global audience and account for nearly a quarter of the 25 million FIFA World Cup App downloads worldwide, making the mobile app more popular in the U.S. than in any other part of the world, The New York Times reported.

American fans are also the most frequent visitors of the World Cup's official Facebook page, which have been visited by 38 million users from the United States in the last 28 days. This, according to the report, comprises 10% of FIFA's global Facebook audience.

In all, 36.7 million fans in the United States have engaged in FIFA's online properties. That is 11.2% of the country's entire population and accounts for around 23% of its total activity.

Sports analysts said the news is surprising considering how slow the United States have been in picking up the sport.

But as Team USA battled their way against Ghana, Portugal, Germany and eventually losing against Belgium in a 2-1 game on Tuesday, American web users cumulatively spent a total of 847 years and 143 days online engaged in the sport. This beats the soccer-crazy nations of Brazil, Germany, England and France put together by a long shot, according to CNN.

FIFA is set to release a complete global data for World Cup 2014 after its final match in July 13.

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