Women’s World Cup final sets tweets-per-second record

Twitter announced on Sunday that the Women's World Cup final between the United States and Japan held that day set a new record for tweets-per-second. The Twitter frenzy surrounding the match beat the previous tweet records set by the Royal Wedding and death of Osama bin Laden.

According to Twitter, there were 7,196 tweets per second about the game, a thriller that Japan won in a penalty-kick shootout.

The women's game eclipsed all past high-water marks for the micro-messaging service, including Japan's 2010 New Year (6,936 tweets-per-second), the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami (5,530), the killing of bin Laden (5,106), Royal Wedding (3,966) and 2011 Super Bowl (4,064).

Twitter noted that the end of the Paraguay-Brazil men's soccer game--the Copa America quarterfinal, also on Sunday--now holds the runner-up tweets-per-second mark, with 7,166.

On ESPN, the Women's World Cup final has drew 13.5 million viewers and earned a 7.4 national rating, according to Nielsen, eclipsing last year's 4.0 rating for the U.S.-Algeria men's World Cup match. It was still well short of the 1999 Women's World Cup final, which drew an 11.4 rating.

Despite the devastating loss, American players should expect to receive a hero's welcome by the media when they return to the states. CBS announced today that Hope Solo and Abby Wambach from U.S. women's team will be appearing on Tuesday's "Late Show With David Letterman."