As the curtain fell on the World Cup and team and player performances were analyzed across the world, The Nielsen Company looked at how the official FIFA website performed across a number of countries that participated in the tournament.

Yesterday’s World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands drew a total of 24.3 million U.S. viewers, making it the most watched soccer game in U.S. television history, according to The Nielsen Company.

An average of 9.9 million people in the U.S. watched LeBron James choose his next basketball destination, according to The Nielsen Company.

According to a week-long buzz study conducted by NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey Company, the New York Knicks, the Chicago Bulls, and the Cleveland Cavaliers have all been the most closely linked teams to King James for at least one day.

A follow-up study by NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey Company, found that in the first two weeks of the tournament Adidas had overtaken Nike, accounting for 25.1% share of World Cup buzz online compared to 14.4% before the event. Nike, meanwhile, dropped from 30.2% to 19.4%.

After a weekend of two “blown” calls by referees in World Cup matches, Nielsen found that two out of three respondents (65 percent) to Nielsen’s online survey of 55 countries were in favor of a change. Only about one in 10 people globally said the ban on the use of video replays should stay, and the others didn’t mind either way.

A total of 99.2 million U.S. viewers have watched at least six minutes of World Cup action through Tuesday. The figure already surpasses the 91.4 million viewers who watched at least some of the games throughout the entire 2006 World Cup.

An estimated 19.4 million U.S. viewers watched USA’s loss to Ghana on Saturday, making it the most watched soccer game ever in the U.S., according to data from The Nielsen Company.

The U.S. team qualifying for the knockout stages of the World Cup has certainly captured the hearts and minds of Americans online, but not quite as much as their draw in the opening game with England.

The average American TV audience for games played by Team USA are up 68% in 2010 compared to the 2006 World Cup, according to an analysis released this afternoon by The Nielsen Company.