Twitter said today that the Boston Marathon bombing in April represented this year’s most heavily tweeted sports-related event, narrowly defeating the NBA Finals in June between the Heat and Spurs. The Marathon generated 27.8 million total tweets, peaking at 44,000 tweets per minute at 3:14pm ET on April 15, 24 minutes after the bombs exploded. The NBA Finals generated 26.7 million tweets, followed by Super Bowl XLVII with 24.1 million, the Red Sox-Cardinals World Series with 6.5 million and the Final Four with 4.6 million. The totals are part of a new year-in-review online page Twitter is debuting today at 2013.twitter.com. Meanwhile, Real Madrid ranked as the top sports team in the world this year on Twitter in terms of follower growth, gaining 3.2 million followers. Ranking behind Real Madrid were FC Barcelona with 2.1 million new followers and Chelsea FC with 1.4 million. Notable sports personalities joining the fast-growing platform this year include Pro Football HOFer Joe Montana, Baseball HOFer Hank Aaron, Lakers G Kobe Bryant, Basketball HOFer Phil Jackson and tennis star Roger Federer.
