The general disgruntlement ahead of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games has given way to enthusiasm, as people in all the major cities have been tuning in to the games.

Some 18 million Canadians, or more than half the population, have watched one minute or more of the televised international competition, according to Numeris numbers put together in an IPG Mediabrands infographic.

Toronto leads with more than 4.9 million total viewers watching the games but viewers have also been following the sport in Montreal (1.8 million), Vancouver (1.5 million), Edmonton (757,00) and Calgary (687,000). The average minute audience is the highest during primetime, but viewers have been watching the games throughout the day.

On social, rugby is the most tweeted tournament event with 6,629 tweets across Canada, with baseball coming in a close second.

Also, Canadians and visitors to Canada have been tweeting Toronto’s special Pan Am additions, in particular the TORONTO sculpture lettering by 100 Queen Street West. The anger directed at the HOV lane restrictions for the games has also reduced with 87% fewer tweets than on the first day of the games.

The Pan Am Games opening ceremony was a huge hit with nearly two million seeing the opening ceremony.

Image by: Alex Chan