It should come as no surprise that Cristiano Ronaldo dominates his Champions League peers on social. With just under 340 million total followers, he’s the most-followed figure in sports and isn’t showing any signs of giving up that title anytime soon.
Perhaps most striking is Ronaldo’s level of engagement. He doubles his closest competition with 1.8 billion (with a “b”) social engagements in the past year. That’s more than four times the total engagements produced by the NFL’s five most engaging players over the same time period.
While Ronaldo may be untouchable, Mo Salah is clearly the league’s rising star on social. Salah made his mark on the pitch last season, winning the Premier League’s 2017-18 Golden Boot, and his social presence is following suit.
Salah leads the Champions League in engagement rate and growth rate on each of the three platforms. His audience has grown by 22.5 million followers in the past year, building at a 146.7% clip.
The Champions League’s athlete-driven MVPs
Below, we analyze the social performance for the Champions League’s 25 most influential players. We measured their audience, activity, engagement, and growth on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram from the past year — September 18, 2017, to September 18, 2018.
Throughout this period, these 25 players have produced incredible performances on social:
- + 5 billion engagements
- + 2 billion video views
- + 250 million new followers
These are the Champions League’s strongest brands on social.