Perhaps Twitter (News - Alert) will take over the spectacles of hooliganism once associated with international soccer matches, as statistics indicate many fans are too preoccupied with their smartphones.

According to reports, soccer fans are prolific tweeters, so much so that they set a new world record last Sunday during the match between Spain and Italy.

If this is any indication of what is to be expected for London’s Olympic Games, we might be closer than ever to the Data Apocalypse by the end of the summer!

Twitter reports there were nearly 16.5 million tweets during the match that took place in Kiev, but it was after Spain scored its fourth consecutive goal against Italy that tweets peaked at 15,358 tweets per second, setting a new world record. The previous record is 12,233 tweets per second, and that occurred during the last three minutes of last February’s Super Bowl. This indicates that nothing like a dramatic sports event can prompt people to share with the world.

Back in 2011, a record of 7,196 tweets per second was set during the Women’s World Cup. Even President Obama tweeted, “Sorry I can’t be there to see you play, but I’ll be cheering you on from here. Let’s go. – BO.”

Along with words of praise or words of disdain – depending on which side of the stadium Tweets were posted from – were pictures, video clips and similar forms of enriched data messages. During March Madness last year, analysts reported about 18 million hours of video streaming to have occurred during the tournament. Some analysts are concerned that a data capacity could be reached by 2016 and are diligently working behind the scenes to create ways to alleviate the crunch.

But as these statistics indicate, sports fans are not likely to worry themselves with limited bandwidth during this time of year. 

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