The UEFA Champions League has an incredible 1.12bn Club Followers on Social Media

• The La Liga giants Real Madrid (247m) & Barcelona (243m) have the largest social media following of all teams in the UEFA Champions League

To read the full social media analysis of the Champions League use the links below:

Click here to jump to All Club Total Audiences

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Click here to jump to analysis of Group A

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Click here to jump to analysis of Group C

Click here to jump to analysis of Group D

Click here to jump to analysis of Group E

Click here to jump to analysis of Group F

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Click here to jump to analysis of Group H

The UEFA Champions League has an incredible 1.12bn club followers on social media. Research into the social media audiences of teams taking part in the Group Stage of the UEFA Champions League has shown that 13-times winner Real Madrid (247m) and 5-times winner Barcelona (243m) are the dominant forces on social media, with a combined audience of almost half a billion. Italian Champions and 2-times Champions League winners Juventus come third with 82m followers while one-time Champions League winner Chelsea from England (81m) and five-times winner Bayern Munich (76m) from Germany round out the top five.

This research was conducted by the public relations, digital and football agency PMPR Excellence to analyse social media influence in the Champions League. The social media audiences were logged across official club Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & YouTube accounts. This included club accounts published in languages other than the club’s ‘home’ language to give a total audience size.

This research follows research published into the players and clubs of the English Premier League and Scottish Premiership which can be found here.

Barcelona have the most followers on Twitter (55m) and YouTube (8m), while their domestic rivals Real Madrid have the most followers on Instagram (78m) and Facebook (110m).

*Chelsea (81m) are second in the PMPR Social Influencer Tables for the English Premier League to Manchester United (125m), who are not participating the Champions League this season.

Languages

The total social media audience of 1.12bn listed above comprises the official club social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. This includes Twitter channels published in languages outside the team’s ‘home’ language. The numbers of 2nd language Twitter accounts and their audiences can be found here:

*The accounts listed as ‘USA’ are presented in English but specifically directed at supporters in the USA. These accounts belong to Liverpool & Bayern Munich.

The Number of 2nd Language Twitter Accounts Operated by each Club is as follows:

Champions League Group Stage Teams on Weibo (China)
In China, several social media channels are prohibited. Weibo is the Chinese language equivalent of Twitter. The following seventeen teams are engaging directly with a social media audience in China through Weibo:

The Editor of the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables Gordon Sheach said: “The UEFA Champions League is one of the greatest club football tournaments in the world, bringing together some of the biggest names in world football. It is incredible to see the strength of La Liga’s big two clubs, standing head and shoulders above their European competition.”

Publisher of the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables and Owner and Managing Director of PMPR Excellence Peter McLean commented: “The combined social media audience of the 32 clubs in the Champions League is over 1.1bn. This demonstrates the considerable commercial power and communications influence of European, if not world football’s, premier club tournament.

“UEFA have been spectacularly successful in creating a tournament that has captured the imagination of a worldwide audience and created considerable funds that filter down to their member associations, clubs and players.

“It is interesting to see the most progressive clubs use a multi-lingual approach on social media. Seventeen clubs are also engaging in China on Weibo including Manchester City and Barcelona. In India, the world’s second largest country by population, only Tottenham Hostpur have a Twitter account speaking directly to that audience in Hindi, the third most spoken language in the world.”

Disclaimer. PMPR has sought to make every reasonable effort to ensure that the data and analysis is correct. All data was collected 10-12 September 2019 and provides a snapshot at that time. Please send any corrections or updates to digital@prexcellence.com.  It should be noted that people can of course follow multiple clubs across multiple channels, so this analysis measures total audience rather than unique followers.

Naturally reach is only one metric of influence, engagement is an also important measurement tool. 

***The Football Social Influencer Tables concept remain the exclusive property of PMPR Excellence Ltd. If publishing extracts please credit the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables and please mention our website www.prexcellence.com/football-social-influencer-tables ***