The term “broke the internet” gets thrown around a lot these days.
However, when Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez left Manchester United for Bayer Leverkusen, that’s literally what happened. Hernandez’s massive global following, combined with the excitement surrounding his transfer to the Bundesliga side, took Bayer’s servers down.
So many people were interested in buying the new Chicharito shirt, and watching his introductory press conference online that the system just couldn’t handle it. According to Kicker:
“Shortly after the jersey of the new arrival was offered in the online shop of Bayer. The presentation video was clicked by 270,000 Chicharito fans when he was finally presented last Tuesday, the live stream of the press conference collapsed.”
Hernandez, who left United after five seasons with the club, is such a popular figure that he’s attracted more than 8 million followers combined across all his social media accounts.
At last count, Chicharito was up to 5.64 million followers on Twitter, which is more than double the amount of people who follow the club’s official account. Yesterday, Chicharito said his official goodbye to the United community on social media. He acknowledged and thanked Sir Alex Ferguson, but failed to mention Louis van Gaal and David Moyes.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 the Zone.
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