Sport and Twitter goes almost hand in hand. Fans watch the action live or on TV and then follow the trends and talking points via the social media platform.
The Fifa World Cup ruled Twitter in 2018, but in 2019 the Fifa Women’s World Cup, Cricket World Cup and Rugby World Cup took the spotlight.
Throw in some memorable Champions League knockout matches, huge boxing title bouts and various finals, and sport certainly dominated the trends in the past 12 months.
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Here we look at the most talked about sports stars, teams and events in 2019.
Most followed sports accounts on Twitter
Cristiano Ronaldo’s @Cristiano profile remains the most followed sports account on Twitter. The Juventus and Portugal footballer has 81.5 million followers.
- @Cristiano - Cristiano Ronaldo (footballer): 81.5m
- @neymarjr - Neymar (footballer): 44.9m
- @KingJames - LeBron James (NBA): 44.2m
- @SportsCenter - SportsCenter (sports channel): 36m
- @espn - ESPN (sports channel): 34.6m
- @realmadrid - Real Madrid CF (football club): 33.4m
- @imVkohli - Virat Kohli (cricketer): 32.6m
- @FCBarcelona - FC Barcelona (football club): 31.4m
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Top teams, athletes and events worldwide
In its #ThisHappened round-up of 2019, Twitter explained the methodology used for its “top” listings. Twitter said: “Instead of ranking by overall tweet volume, we’re ranking by the number of people tweeting about each topic. We wanted to know what got the most people talking, not just what was the loudest.”
In terms of teams it was a Spanish football top two with Barcelona and Real Madrid, while for international sports competition hashtags the #UCL Uefa Champions League one was most discussed.
Fifa Women’s World Cup and Ballon d’Or winner Megan Rapinoe was the most talked about female athlete worldwide and PSG and Brazil football star Neymar was the most talked about male athlete.
Memorable sports tweets of 2019
We pick out some of our favourite sporting tweets from the past 12 months, plus one non-sport tweet featuring two footballers’ wives...
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For analysis of the biggest sport stories - and a concise, balanced take on the week’s news - try The Week magazine. Start your trial today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––