May 27 – They may have missed out on the final stage of this season’s Champions League, but one area where they remain unsurpassable is with their social media followings with Real Madrid (488 million followers) and Barcelona (442 million), leading a world club ranking of the number of followers on the main social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X).
Premier League Manchester United complete the top three with 239 million follower, just under half that of Real Madrid, while Paris Saint-Germain rank 4th with 208 million followers.
The report from the CIES Football Observatory highlights the Bundesliga’s Bayern Munich as the outside of the top 10 that recorded the strongest growth over the past year both in absolute (+16.1 million followers) and relative terms (+11%).
Data shows clubs in the top 10 have a combined total of 2.36 billion followers, up 3.8% on last year, broken down as follows among the platforms selected: Instagram (31%), Facebook (31%), TikTok (17%), X (16%) and YouTube (5%).
CIES report authors find point to the spread geographically of the top 100 clubs coming from countries with every continent (bar Oceania) represented. The highest number of clubs by country are Spain (21 teams, often with a large following on TikTok), England (16) and Brazil (11).
Outside Europe, the top three clubs are Brazil’s Flamengo (71.6 million), Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr FC (66.0 million) and Egypt’s Al-Ahly SC (60.1 million).
Al Nassr are notable for the boost of having the superstar social following of Ronaldo and are ranked 16th. Inter Miami – the only MLS club ranked in the top 100 – with Lionel Messi driving everything they do on and off the pitch, are ranked 21st with 43.2 million followers.
To see the full ranking, click here.
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