World Cup Wake Up

June 12th’s game between Brazil and Croatia signified the official start of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Brazil, despite a rough start with an own goal, surged to victory with Neymar spearheading the host countries effort to best Croatia 3-1.

With the matches optimized for European time-zones, China was left in the dark, literally, as the first match of the World Cup began at 4:00AM on a Friday morning.  Mailman decided to take a look at just how active the World Cup’s presence has been in the last 24 hours on China’s biggest social media channel: Sina Weibo.

Despite the uncomfortable viewing hours, China – and its social media channels – were wide awake and enthralled during the first match. Maybe it was the questionable refereeing decisions, the hype around Brazil being favourites to win, or people just needing to keep busy on social media to stay awake, but in only 24 hours, the World Cup was mentioned in over 12 million Weibo posts with the two competing teams amassing almost 4 million mentions between them.

Of course the World Cup wasn’t just popular on the opening night, the last few weeks have seen a growing excitement around the upcoming event. Sina Weibo even got involved- fans are able to select a nation, and have that nation’s flag appear next to their username to show their support for the user’s favorite national team. Despite not qualifying, the technicians at Sina though it would probably be a good idea to allow the selection of the Chinese flag, but even nationalism was stumped by China’s overall support for the German national squad.

So even though the World Cup matches will be played at some of the most uncomfortable hours for Chinese viewers, televisions and Chinese social media channels are switched on, as China shows their unwavering support for international football.