Champions League on Social Media: Research Reveals Colossal Differences in the Teams’ Following

Paul Kemp Oct 16, 2023

Football has proven time and time again that money does not buy you success. Conversely, success guarantees love and adoration and our latest report proves just that. Today SportingPedia looks at the teams participating in the most prestigious club football competition – the UEFA Champions League, and how many followers each side has attracted on the four most popular social platforms – X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, taking into consideration only the teams’ official accounts. The research reveals the six teams which enjoy more than 100 million followers, and another five who are struggling to reach 1 million.

UEFA Champions League 2023/24 – Social Media followers of all Teams in the Group Stage

Key Takeaways:

• The only two teams who have more than 300 million followers are both from Spain – Real Madrid and Barcelona
• Five teams have less than 1 million followers
• The difference in followers between the most and least followed team is over 300 times
• Group “E” (Atletico Madrid, Celtic, Feyenoord and Lazio) has the smallest combined fan base of all 8 pots in the competition, representing just 3.4% of the total
• Group “A” is the only one to feature two teams with more than 100 million followers
• Each of Groups “C”, “G” and “H” boasts a team that commands more than 94% of the total fan base for that respective pot

Team Talk

Real Madrid and Barcelona are the two most successful teams in the Champions League era, winning the competition 8 and 4 times respectively. Then it comes as no surprise that the two Spanish giants are the most followed on social media among all Champions League participants this season. Real and Barca are the only two teams who amass fan bases of over 300 million followers, with their closest challenger being Manchester United, who comes in 3rd position in the ranking with 205 million supporters.

Beside the aforementioned sides, only three other teams have more than 100 million followers on the social networks. PSG, Manchester City and Bayern Munich all join the prestigious company of being the most popular football clubs on the internet. With 352.1 million followers, Real Madrid’s fan base alone is bigger than those of all teams ranked from 9th to 32nd position combined.

21 teams are having from 1 million to 100 million followers. Arsenal is closest to joining the elusive club of the most-followed sides, needing just over 2 million fans to reach the milestone. Red Bull Salzburg is at the other end within this pot and is the only team in the tournament having more than a million followers but less than two.

The first million is the hardest they say. Well, according to the numbers, only five teams remain with less than 1 million followers: Braga, Union Berlin, Young Boys, Copenhagen and Antwerp. The Belgian side is the one with the lowest number at 553.9k. The Portuguese Braga might join the “Middle Ground” very soon, as they are just 5000 followers short of the million mark.

Group Talk

On the first glimpse we see that Group “A” gathers the most followers with 371.31 million across the 4 major platforms. The main reason behind that is that it is the only group which has two teams with over 100 million followers – Bayern Munich and Manchester United. Group “C” falls in 2nd place, with the gap to the top spot being just over 1 million followers. Overall, 3 pots exceed the 300 million followers mark, while two fail to reach 100 million followers.

Group “E” (Atletico Madrid, Lazio, Celtic and Feyenoord) has the lowest number of followers on social media, with the four sides combining for a total of 59.56 million. 81.1% of them are following Diego Simeone’s side, while Celtic has the 2nd biggest share with 7.3% or 4.37 million followers.

Groups “C”, “G” and “H” are witnessing disparities of gigantic proportions, as Real Madrid, Manchester City and Barcelona enjoy fan bases that represent 94% or more of the entire pot.

General Talk

In the current season, the 32 Champions League participants collectively amass an impressive 1.768 billion followers across the four major social media platforms: X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Both of the Meta-owned companies boast impressive numbers of over 600 million, while TikTok and X hover around the 250 million mark. Notably, Elon Musk’s platform falls short of surpassing this threshold.

Raw Data