• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, August 13, 2012

The Olympic broadcasts have set the bar for sports events and social media commentary -- drawing 36 million total comments during the Games, according to Bluefin Labs, although some of the commentary revealed results before NBC aired events in prime time.

The Olympic social media activity topped the combined 32.7 million social media comments of the Super Bowl, all seven World Series games, the Oscars, Grammys and Golden Globes, according to Bluefin, which analyzes social media use.

Moving beyond the NBC coverage, there were 82.6 million social media comments touching upon all sorts of Olympic activity, including comments from athletes. 

The huge numbers are not surprising, as this has been billed as the first Olympics where Twitter drove much of the online conversation. Twitter had an official partnership with NBC, and the network ran spots noting it during its broadcasts.

On Sunday, when the U.S. won gold in men’s basketball and the Closing Ceremony took place, there were 11.4 million social media comments.

There were 2.7 million during the NBC prime-time coverage, peaking when the Spice Girls returned as a group during the ceremony. One Direction’s performance, the appearance by Russell Brand and video with Freddie Mercury also sparked commentary.