NEW YORK — Even without the home team involved, the World Cup final between Germany and Argentina set a television viewership record in the United States, capping a tournament that exceeded expectations for interest on both ESPN and Univision.

The month-long World Cup also was responsible for more than 3 billion interactions on Facebook and 672 million messages on Twitter, the social media companies said on Monday.

An estimated 26.5 million people in the U.S. watched Germany’s extra-time win on Sunday afternoon The game had 17.3 million viewers on ABC and another 9.2 million on the Spanish-language Univision. In addition, just over 750,000 people were watching the game online.

The 2010 finale between Spain and the Netherlands, along with the U.S. team’s 2-2 draw against Portugal earlier in this year’s tournament, both had 24.7 million viewers.