Sports communications agency Sport Market and its brand strategy partner Synthesio “analyzed the Internet conversations on social media surrounding Euro 2016,” according to LE FIGARO. Between the opening match on June 10 and the final on July 10, Euro 2016 “was mentioned 30.7 million times.” Those two matches constituted the “major peaks of the competition,” with 2 million mentions for the opener and 1.8 million for the final. Sport Market Dir Pierre de la Ville-Baugé said, “Euro 2016 attracted a very strong passion on social media with over 30 million mentions. In comparison, we registered 6.5 million mentions during the 2015 Rugby World Cup.” The two Euro 2016 finalists “were the most mentioned teams during the competition,” with France drawing 2.3 million and Portugal 1.7 million. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo was "the most mentioned player" with over 1 million, followed by France’s Antoine Griezmann with 607,000 mentions. French telecom Orange “was the most talked about Euro 2016 sponsor,” with 137,000 mentions thanks to its “Orange Sponsors You” campaign. The campaign allowed fans the possibility of “illuminating the Eiffel Tower in the colors of their country through Twitter.” With its “Man of the Match” campaign, Carlsberg was second with 77,600 mentions. Synthesio France Dir Nicolas Saintagne said, “This Euro underlined the prominent developments of social media usage. While Twitter remains the preferred live-platform of supporters, there was a notable growth by Instagram for this edition” (SPORT 24, 7/12).
