How Cristiano Ronaldo’s Real Madrid Is Winning Social Media

Along with Argentine Leo Messi (who plays for Spanish team Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo is considered by many as the best soccer player in the world. But when it comes to winning the world of social media, the Portuguese Ronaldo (who plays for Spanish team Real Madrid, whose rivalry with Barcelona goes a long, long way) might just be the runaway winner.

As of latest account, Ronaldo has about 107 million followers on Instagram. As a matter of fact, the athlete is just third behind pop stars Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande. As for Ronaldo’s team, Real Madrid, it currently has more than 200 million followers on social media. To provide some context, 200 million people is equivalent to about two thirds of the whole population of the United States.

There is a good reason why Real Madrid is one of the most popular sports team in the planet. Soccer after all is widely considered by many as the most popular sport in the world. And Real Madrid has managed to become one of the most successful and decorated team in the history of the beautiful game. And it also helps that this year, Ronaldo’s team made history by becoming the first soccer team ever to win the Champions League title two years in a row. 

Real Madrid has taken its winning ways to social media as well. Because of its strong presence in Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the team’s social index value is estimated at around $1.7 billion (for the record, the team is currently valued at approximately $3.6 billion). As pointed out by Kyle Nelson from MVPindex (a platform that specializes in social media metrics), that $1.7 billion is the highest in any professional sport. 

That is quite an achievement for what is essentially a sports team from Spain’s capital. To Real Madrid’s credit, it has done one heck of a job expanding its fan base well outside of Madrid and outside of Spain or the whole European continent for that matter. And it certainly helps that Instagram is populated by hordes of rabid sports fans. As revealed by Brandon Gayle, the head of global sports partnerships at Instagram, around 243 million Instagram users follow at least 10 sports related accounts. That 243 million is around one third of the social media platform’s total 700 million user base. And of that 243 million, more than half (around 146 million to be exact) are fans of soccer. For comparison, basketball’s fans are estimated at a mere 45 million.

So what is Real Madrid’s secret? Interestingly, it is more quality over quantity than the usual overloading of posts. And on social media, the team appears to favor using videos and images more than the usual run of the mill team updates. Of course, its social media team happens to be staffed with 20 people that speak multiple languages. And their efforts have paid off -- on Instagram, Real Madrid has over 51 million followers. That is nearly five times more than the combined totals of American pro sports champions, including the Golden State Warriors (7 million followers on Instagram), the New England Patriots (2.6 million followers), the Chicago Cubs (1.1 million followers), and the Pittsburgh Penguins (918,000 followers).