The 5 Teams With the Biggest Online Presences in Football

Popularity is a vital asset in football today.

It can fill stadiums, sell merchandise and even help sign players when a team uses it correctly. But popularity can no longer be measured by match-day tickets sold. Nor can it be measured in decibels reverberating around the terraces.

Just ask Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, who was quoted in The Guardian saying, “We’re directly in contact with over 100 million fans.” He was of course referring to the importance of the club’s colossal online presence.

Then there’s the battle for supremacy that currently continues in La Liga between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Not the one for silverware, but for online domination of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as reported by Kurt Badenhausen at Forbes.

But, objectively speaking, who are the world’s most popular football teams? Those who can boast millions of online followers and impressive website statistics?

Here we list the world’s top five, and uncover how they’ve achieved global notoriety.

5. Chelsea

Kerstin Joensson/Associated Press

Like all clubs on this list, Chelsea have benefited from their geography. Based in London, the UK capital has a booming population of over 8 million people to harvest fans from. A population that continues to grow, according to The Guardian, which clearly puts them at an advantage compared to other Premier League teams like Hull City, Leicester City and Stoke City.

But the popularity of Chelsea expands far beyond the regions of London. Notable Twitter fans, like Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic with 3.6 million followers, energy drink brand Red Bull with 1.8 million followers and chief sponsor Adidas with their 1.9 million followers, have all helped grow Chelsea’s online Twitter presence to over 5 million users. Even controversial TV presenter and car enthusiast Jeremy Clarkson, with his 4 million followers, has had a part to play.

Equally impressive is the upwards of 40 million fans they house on Facebook. Granted the figure itself is remarkable, but so is the level of engagement they receive. For example, a single post celebrating Diego Costa’s 26th birthday received 258,622 likes, according to social media metric site Twtrland.

Finally, add more than 1.7 million fans on Instagram and over 396,000 on YouTube and it’s not surprising Chelsea find themselves among the most popular teams in the world today.

Perhaps they are only slightly let down by their website traffic data, as Alexa claims they are the 8,772nd most popular website in the world—the lowest of any club on the list, hence they make only No. 5 on the list.

4. Arsenal

Sang Tan/Associated Press

Beating their London rivals to fourth place is Arsenal. It was a closely fought battle, but Arsenal win the Twitter war by collecting 5.19 million followers. Again fuelled by some noteworthy followers, like the FIFA World Cup with 3.1 million followers, FIFA President Sepp Blatter with 2.7 million followers and The X Factor with 5.5 million, Arsenal now boasts one of the largest legion of Twitter followers in world football.

What’s even more impressive is their level of engagement. According to the social media metric site Twtrland, they receive 39,553 retweets per 100 tweets. The single tweet that welcomed Danny Welbeck from Manchester United received 35,670 alone, and their online homage to club legend Thierry Henry as he retired received 13,248.    

Twitter isn’t the jewel in their social media crown, either. Boasting over 32 million fans on Facebook, 1.5 million on Instagram and more than 180,000 YouTube subscribers, it’s not surprising Arsenal come in at No. 4 on the list.

Add to this an impressive global ranking of 5,559 on Alexa—769th most popular website in the UK—and Arsenal represent a formidable, popular online football force.

3. Barcelona

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

According to a comprehensive article by Jamie Jackson on The Guardian website, the battleground that is football’s social media is dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid.

While that may be true in terms of sheer Twitter, Facebook and YouTube fans, the article doesn’t take into account the level of activity and engagement on each platform. Nor does the author take into consideration website traffic. Because of these two important variables, Barcelona come in at No. 3—here’s why.

According to Alexa, FCBarcelona.com is the world’s 7,205th most popular website—1,109th most popular in Spain. That means it attracts less global website traffic than Arsenal.com, despite having a far superior social media reach.

Also, despite amassing an amazing 13.9 million followers on Twitter, six million fans on Instagram and 81.4 million on Facebook, they only achieve 188,449 engagements (retweets, replies, likes, shares and comments) per post, according to Twtrland. Although that sounds a lot, Twtrland shows Manchester United, with a mere 4.25 million on Twitter and comparatively fewer fans on other platforms, receive 235,013 engagements per post.

So although Barcelona also have a truly amazing 1.6 million YouTube subscribers, they only come third, missing out on the No. 2 spot to the following fan-collecting powerhouse.  

2. Manchester United

Clint Hughes/Associated Press

Manchester United are perhaps a surprising entry at No. 2—surprising because the Red Devils are among the most recognisable sports clubs in the world. But when solely looking at statistics from social media it seems Barcelona win hands down. However social media doesn’t tell the whole story.

Firstly, looking at statistics, you’ll see Barcelona have 13.9 million Twitter fans compared to Manchester United’s 4.25 million. However Twtrland shows Manchester United’s most popular player-related tweet—the signing of Angel Di Maria—received 66,988 retweets. Far more compared to Barcelona’s tweet that announced the signing of Neymar, which received 21,678.

Secondly, according to Alexa, ManUtd.com is the 5,289th most popular website in the world, making it the highest ranking of any other club in this list—just slightly more than Arsenal.

Finally, Manchester United have a trump card to play in the popularity stakes. Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward was quoted in a November press conference saying, per The Guardian:

"

The club has 61 million followers on Facebook, 3.8 million followers on Twitter with a cumulative total of 87 million followers across all social media. We’re directly in contact with over 100 million fans, when you add in our 37 million of CRM records ['Customer Relationship Management,' United’s fan information database].

"

Therefore, taking into account their “Customer Relationship Management” scheme, immensely engaged social media channels and, of course, impressive website statistics, Manchester United take the No. 2 spot.

1. Real Madrid

Christophe Ena/Associated Press

Fending off competition from some of the world's best, the most popular club in world football today is Real Madrid. This is because, trump cards and famous Twitter fans aside, Real Madrid boast the largest collection of social media fans across all channels. Amazingly, this includes 14.4 million on Twitter, 80.9 million on Facebook, 6.1 million on Instagram and 1.6 million on YouTube.

Granted, they don’t have the most impressive website statistics for RealMadrid.com—according to Alexa, they are the 7,092nd most popular website in the world, which is less than Manchester United and Arsenal—however, the sheer quantity and quality of their social media channels shows they are simply "housing" their fans on there.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the 586,813 users who liked their Facebook post celebrating Cristiano Ronaldo’s 2014 Ballon d’Or award, as reported by Twtrland. This post received over twice the amount of likes of Chelsea’s most popular Facebook post, which celebrated Diego Costa’s 26th birthday.

Of course, it helps Cristiano Ronaldo himself has 105 million fans on his Facebook page—arguably the most popular player in the world who just happens to be playing for the most popular club in the world. It demonstrates a perfect partnership and a merging of two marketing titans from football.

Could it even be argued this had a large influence on the overall result of the Ballon d’Or? Was Ronaldo always at a distinct advantage when you look at such metric data? That’s a whole other article, but hopefully the information contained within this particular one shows just how valuable popularity is. Especially for a club like Real Madrid, who use it better than anyone else.

All facts and figures correct at the time of writing.

Follow @RossEdgley