popular sports teams on social media

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Wednesday 17 July 2013

FC Barcelona is the most popular sports team on social media

ZenithOptimedia launches global ranking of sports teams The Social League

FC Barcelona is the most popular sports team on both Facebook and Twitter, according to new global

research by ZenithOptimedia and Sponsorship Intelligence. The Spanish football club tops

ZenithOptimedia’s new ranking of sports teams on social media, The Social League, with 43 million

fans on Facebook and 9.1 million followers on Twitter. Rival team Real Madrid comes second in

ZenithOptimedia’s global ranking with 38 million Facebook fans and 7.9 million Twitter followers.

ZenithOptimedia used its new proprietary research and analysis tool Socialtools to produce The

Social League, which ranks sports teams around the world according to their popularity on social

media*. Socialtools is a live tracking app that monitors brand performance on Facebook, Twitter and

YouTube. It generates over 100 live dashboards that benchmark a brand’s social performance against

competitors and the category.

According to The Social League’s top 30 ranking, the biggest sport brands in social media are football

(soccer) and basketball teams. The top four teams on Facebook, and seven of the top ten, are

football teams from Europe; the others are a Formula 1 team from Italy and two basketball teams

from the US. US basketball is more prominent on Twitter, providing four of the top ten teams, while

European football provides the other six, including four of the top five.

The European football teams dominate the top of The Social League as they have wide international

followings. The top five teams on Facebook are FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF, Manchester United,

Chelsea FC and AC Milan. These teams get 31% of their fans from Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and

the US, and only 7% from Italy, Spain and the UK, where they are actually based.

FC Barcelona has more Facebook fans in Indonesia (4.1 million), Mexico (3.0 million), the US and

Brazil (1.9 million each) than it does in its home market of Spain (1.7 million). This is primarily

because these markets are so large – Mexico, the US and Brazil represent 27.8% of the total

Facebook population, and 16.1% of FC Barcelona fans. Indonesia, however, provides 9.3% of FC



Barcelona’s fans from 4.9% of the Facebook population, giving it an index** of 191. FC Barcelona has

a strong association with Indonesia. It recently added Indonesian as one of only eight languages on

the official website. In keeping with its number one status in The Social League, FC Barcelona has a

very active engagement strategy with its large audiences of fans and followers. The club posts

content on Facebook, on average, seven times a day. It has a strong news strategy, posting updates

about team events, matches, player status, results and on/off season activity. Fans are rewarded with

exclusive content, such as gaming apps and signed team photos.

The other team in the Facebook top 10 is Ferrari, which recently merged its Formula 1 and

automotive pages to broaden global engagement with the Ferrari brand. Ferrari makes a huge effort

to make fans feel part of it Formula 1 team. Its new Facebook page features The Ferrari Virtual

Academy, which invites fans to take part in virtual races, configure cars to their own specifications

and have their performance tracked on the site. On average, Ferrari posts content six times a day on

Facebook, and tweets at least 20 times.

Just outside the Facebook top 10, at 12th place, comes the Indian national cricket team. Another

Indian cricket team – Mumbai Indians – is in at number 26. These are present thanks to the huge

popularity of cricket in India and the large numbers of Indians on Facebook ‐ India provides 87% of

the Indian Cricket Team’s fans.

The top five US teams on Facebook are the basketball teams LA Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics,

and Miami Heat, plus the baseball team New York Yankees. These get 46% of their Facebook fans

from the US, with the Philippines a distant second at 13%. Teams from the US have more Facebook

fans in our League than teams from any other country: 166 million in total, or 37% of the total. This is

partly because the US also has more Facebook users than any other country, accounting for 16% of

the total.

The UK comes second in our League, with 94 million fans (21% of the total), while Spain comes third,

with 86 million fans (19%). Both countries benefit strongly from the international appeal of their

teams, since the UK accounts for only 3% of Facebook users and Spain 2%. The US dominates the

Twitter league even more, with 32 million followers, 42% of the total. Spain comes second on Twitter,

with 19 million followers, while the UK comes third, with 12 million.



Belinda Rowe, Global Managing Partner, ZenithOptimedia, said: “The Social League shows that sports

teams have the power to reach passionate fans across the world, and one of the most effective ways

to do this is provide frequent updates with exclusive content on social media.The launch of The Social

League demonstrates the power of Socialtools, our new social media application. It gives our

planners around the world comprehensive insights about brand performance in the social space,

helping them to devise highly engaging social strategies that deliver ROI.”

Notes to editors

*We do not cover China, where Facebook and Twitter are unavailable.

**Here the index is the proportion of a team’s fans from a country, divided by the proportion of the

Facebook population from that country, multiplied by 100. It measures how over‐represented (index

above 100) or under‐represented (index below 100) that country is within the team’s social fan base.



The Social League – top 30 teams on Facebook

Team Sport Country Number of fans

1 FC Barcelona Football Spain 42,680,849

2 Real Madrid C.F. Football Spain 38,391,783

3 Manchester United Football United Kingdom 33,696,211

4 Chelsea Football Club Football United Kingdom 17,205,888

5 LA Lakers Basketball USA 16,351,755

6 A.C. Milan Football Italy 15,691,813

7 Arsenal Football United Kingdom 14,068,018

8 Liverpool FC Football United Kingdom 12,151,171

9 Ferrari Formula 1 Italy 11,779,611

10 Chicago Bulls Basketball USA 8,682,474

11 Miami Heat Basketball USA 8,152,568

12 Indian Cricket Team Cricket India 7,659,937

13 FC Bayern München Football Germany 7,468,244

14 Boston Celtics Basketball USA 6,927,881

15 New York Yankees Baseball USA 6,347,730

16 Juventus Football Italy 5,784,498

17 Manchester City FC Football United Kingdom 5,489,518

18 Dallas Cowboys American Football USA 5,390,028

19 Pittsburgh Steelers American Football USA 4,860,542

20 New England Patriots American Football USA 4,024,726

21 SC Corinthians Paulista Football Brazil 3,933,489

22 Boston Red Sox Baseball USA 3,816,628

23 BOCA Football Argentina 3,794,206

24 New York Knicks Basketball USA 3,731,306

25 Green Bay Packers American Football USA 3,469,022

26 Clube de Regatas do Flamengo Football Brazil 3,384,061

27 Mumbai Indians Cricket India 3,211,251

28 New Orleans Saints American Football USA 2,939,059

29 Borussia Dortmund Football Germany 2,742,877

30 Chicago Bears American Football USA 2,705,988



The Social League – top 30 teams on Twitter

Team Sport Country No. followers

1 @FCBarcelona Football Spain 9,106,397

2 @realmadrid Football Spain 7,869,254

3 @Lakers Basketball USA 3,141,998

4 @Arsenal Football United Kingdom 2,414,605

5 @chelseafc Football United Kingdom 2,227,852

6 @LFC Football United Kingdom 1,712,253

7 @MiamiHEAT Basketball USA 1,360,859

8 @acmilan Football Italy 1,139,999

9 @celtics Basketball USA 1,111,868

10 @Orlando_Magic Basketball USA 1,105,260

11 @MCFC Football United Kingdom 909,982

12 @Yankees Baseball USA 906,697

13 @chicagobulls Basketball USA 832,605

14 @nyknicks Basketball USA 637,218

15 @PSG_inside Football France 627,940

16 @OM_Officiel Football France 621,682

17 @Patriots American Football USA 600,984

18 @juventusfc Football Italy 595,354

19 @nyjets American Football USA 581,597

20 @dallascowboys American Football USA 566,643

21 @InsideFerrari Formula 1 Italy 552,743

22 @steelers American Football USA 544,569

23 @okcthunder Basketball USA 515,634

24 @SpursOfficial Football United Kingdom 486,478

25 @RedSox Baseball USA 475,363

26 @packers American Football USA 463,267

27 @Giants American Football USA 457,807

28 @BocaJrsOficial Football Argentina 445,344

29 @SFGiants Baseball USA 431,563

30 @Atleti Football Spain 409,928



For further information, please contact: Jonathan Barnard Anthony Goddard Head of Forecasting Head of Media Research ZenithOptimedia Sponsorship Intelligence Tel: +44 20 7961 1192 Tel: +44 20 3003 9972 E‐mail: [email protected] E‐mail: anthony.goddard @sponsorshipintelligence.com

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popular sports teams on social media

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