World Cup 2014 in the Twitter World: A big data analysis of sentiments in U.S. sports fans' tweets.

•We used a big data approach to analyze U.S. soccer fans’ sentiments in their tweets.•Tweets were used to express joy and anticipation and to express emotions.•U.S. fans’ fear and anger were common and reflected U.S. team’s goals or losses.•Emotions in two non-U.S. games were unclear.•This paper provides support for disposition theory of sport and sentiment analysis.