In this article we look at the amount of facebook followers each of the Premier league clubs has at the start of the 2022-23 season, these stats were correct at time of writing this article
There are a few reasons for the numbers – obviously the top teams do not really have that many supporters in England and hence thats one of the reasons there is so much focus on social media nowadays.
The ability to market to areas of the world where you do not have the traditional loyalty towards a club which may be based on where you live or were born or quite often its family related – your dad or grandad supported the team for example and took you to your first game.
In North America and especially Asia it tends to be the team that ‘wins’ the trophies that people will follow and ‘support’ – there is nothing wrong with that its just for supporters of the club in the UK where switching loyalty would been seen as a crime, its not looked this way in other parts of the world.
There can be other factots – Leicester were taken over by Thai businessmen and grew a support there and winning the league also helped greatly.
You can also say that some of the teams near the bottom have smaller fan bases and have not been in the Premier league for many years – therefore do not get so much coverage on traditional media outlets. therefore ‘new’ fans might not be aware if they are languishing in the lower leagues – Leeds and Forest are good example, Leeds facebook numbers do seem to be climbing now they are back in the Premier league
| # | Football Team | Number of Fans | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Manchester United | 77,056,666 | 20 |
| 02 | Chelsea | 51,782,081 | 6 |
| 03 | Liverpool | 42,999,752 | 19 |
| 04 | Manchester City | 42,972,578 | 8 |
| 05 | Arsenal | 39,306,784 | 13 |
| 06 | Tottenham Hotspur | 25,336,768 | 2 |
| 07 | Leicester City | 7,485,630 | 1 |
| 08 | Aston Villa | 4,312,431 | 7 |
| 09 | Everton | 4,235,182 | 9 |
| 10 | Southampton | 3,217,487 | 0 |
| 11 | West Ham | 3,171,462 | 0 |
| 12 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 2,890,948 | 3 |
| 13 | Newcastle United | 2,732,871 | 4 |
| 14 | Crystal Palace | 1,400,000 (doesn’t list exact amount) | 0 |
| 15 | Leeds United | 1,138,479 | 3 |
| 16 | Fulham | 921,378 | 0 |
| 17 | Brighton & Hove Albion | 728,409 | 0 |
| 18 | Bournemouth | 536,607 | 0 |
| 19 | Nottingham Forest | 476,000 (doesn’t list exact amount) | 2 |
| 20 | Brentford | 409,170 | 2 |
Now, you may look at these numbers and not think a lot but that’s not what the big clubs do. Manchester United have been particularly noticeable about mentioning social media engagements in their AGMs. You could argue that their latest teams have reflected that with players that firmly could be called ‘social media players’ such as Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard.
Is this is a bad thing, maybe not but then its noticeable that these players and others did seem to have the external baggage of being more an influencer rather than a football player – maybe me but I’d rather have had players whodid the business on the pitch.
With regards to social media followers you can see why clubs do it, the money to made from the platforms is low but marketing wise you can get to spread your brand to more people
- The ability to promote their latest products to fans far and wide
- The ability to attract bigger sponsors – does your brand want to promote to 1 million, 10 million or 70 million potential customers
Now old school fans will not like this and of course its not just cynical marketing, the clubs do supply useful information to their followers and sometimes depending on how good the social media setup is, unique content.
