June 5 – Real Madrid top a ranking of club social media followers by the CIES Football Observatory, as data shows the UEFA Champions League winners have gained more than 40 million followers since 2023.
They tallied a total of 410 million followers across Instagram, X, Facebook and TikTok, beating arch-rival Barcelona (360 million) and Manchester United (216 million) to top spot.
The stats show that Real Madrid and Barcelona remain as the two social superpowers across world football, holding almost as many combined followers (771 million) as the entire Premier League ‘Big six’ put together (857 million).
Of the 100 teams in the study, French champions Paris Saint Germain are the only team to have lost followers since 2023 despite winning the domestic double this season.
The substantial 2.7 million follower loss could be blamed on the recently-announced departure of star man Kylian Mbappe to add to the losses of social media superpowers Leo Messi and Neymar in the summer.
Al Nassr were huge winners across social media growth as the new most-followed non-European team, but that tends to happen when you sign the most-followed person on the planet.
The acquisition of Cristiano Ronaldo has seen the Saudi club leapfrog AC Milan, Tottenham and Inter Milan to become the 11th most-followed club on Instagram with almost 26 million, with 54 million followers across all socials (X, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram).
Poetically matching Al Nassr stride for stride, Leo Messi’s Inter Miami achieved the biggest relative growth as the club’s social media presence grew by +1,348% to a total of 33.4 million followers on all platforms.
Manchester City continued their meteoric rise up the social chart by gaining 27.3 million followers across their socials, fuelled by the repeated success of Guardiola’s team headlined by a historic treble in 2023. That figure could soon come crashing down, though, as their long-winded legal case with the Premier league continues to heat up.
Twenty-five countries are represented in the CIES top 100, with 18 clubs coming from Spain, followed by England (17), Brazil (12) and Mexico (6).
To see the full data, click here.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at moc.l1725753881labto1725753881ofdlr1725753881owedi1725753881sni@g1725753881niwe.1725753881yrrah1725753881