The role of social media in professional sports is getting a lot of attention these days, unfortunately mostly in the form of teams and leagues trying to clamp down on it or players making mistakes with it.
Despite this, fans are passionately supporting and discussing their teams through a range of social media outlets, in particular Twitter and Facebook. Since we’re in the heart of football season, I thought I’d take a look at which NFL teams have the largest following on both sites.
In the table below the 32 NFL teams are ranked by the total number of followers/fans on their official Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. These figures obviously change quickly but this current snapshot is useful for comparison.
| Twitter followers | Facebook fans | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh Steelers | No official account | 408,277 | 408,277 |
| 2 | Chicago Bears | 10,694 | 371,597 | 382,291 |
| 3 | Minnesota Vikings | 16,670 | 202,084 | 218,754 |
| 4 | Indianapolis Colts | No official account | 201,100 | 201,100 |
| 5 | Green Bay Packers | 11,220 | 185,577 | 196,797 |
| 6 | New England Patriots | 30,040 | 143,563 | 173,603 |
| 7 | Philadelphia Eagles | No official account | 170,114 | 170,114 |
| 8 | Washington Redskins | No official account | 170,114 | 170,114 |
| 9 | San Diego Chargers | 28,467 | 135,572 | 164,039 |
| 10 | Miami Dolphins | 17,124 | 145,687 | 162,811 |
| 11 | Seattle Seahawks | 9,759 | 111,772 | 121,531 |
| 12 | San Francisco 49ers | 18,099 | 81,950 | 100,049 |
| 13 | Denver Broncos | 11,411 | 83,465 | 94,876 |
| 14 | Cincinnati Bengals | 13,838 | 68,854 | 82,692 |
| 15 | Oakland Raiders | 19,045 | 60,586 | 79,631 |
| 16 | Baltimore Ravens | 9,738 | 57,373 | 67,111 |
| 17 | Kansas City Chiefs | 9,950 | 55,862 | 65,812 |
| 18 | New York Jets | 15,822 | 48,290 | 64,112 |
| 19 | Buffalo Bills | 9,303 | 54,057 | 63,360 |
| 20 | Cleveland Browns | 7,657 | 40,320 | 47,977 |
| 21 | Atlanta Falcons | 11,956 | 35,835 | 47,791 |
| 22 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 4,694 | 39,468 | 44,162 |
| 23 | Detroit Lions | 2,633 | 41,218 | 43,851 |
| 24 | Tennessee Titans | 11,531 | 31,664 | 43,195 |
| 25 | Houston Texans | 3,047 | 31,797 | 34,844 |
| 26 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 3,570 | 30,003 | 33,573 |
| 27 | Arizona Cardinals | No official account | 32,836 | 32,836 |
| 28 | St. Louis Rams | 3,166 | 16,053 | 19,219 |
| 29 | Dallas Cowboys | 9,826 | No official page | 9,826 |
| 30 | Carolina Panthers | 5,208 | No official page | 5,208 |
| 31 | New Orleans Saints | No official account | No official page | N/A |
| 32 | New York Giants | No official account | No official page | N/A |
Interestingly, despite no official presence on Twitter the Pittsburgh Steelers have the largest reach thanks to their large number of Facebook fans. I was also surprised that the Dallas Cowboys do not have an official Facebook page as they would certainly attract a significant number of fans.
I had expected all the teams to have more followers on Twitter. The San Diego Chargers lead the league with only 28K followers. (UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Blewitt for noticing that it is actually the New England Patriots that have the most Twitter followers at 30K+).
The New Orleans Saints and New York Giants are currently at the bottom of the social media heap with no official presence on either Twitter or Facebook. However an unofficial Saints page is very popular on Facebook with 163,760 fans.
Capturing data on only “official” accounts and pages was actually somewhat difficult (I welcome corrections if I’ve missed any). Twitter is a wild west for NFL teams right now – there are far more unofficial accounts, and even those that that claim to be official aren’t always actually so. Twitter should consider extending its “verified accounts” to team sites as well. On Facebook the official team pages are easier to identify, but they often face competition from other pages created by fans or local media. For several teams the unofficial pages have significantly more fans.
So the main takeaway is that NFL teams need to take better control of their social media presence and come up with more a cohesive engagement strategy. NFL fans are among the most passionate, so there is a great opportunity to leverage their loyalty and enthusiasm and further extend the relationships.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post. Really interesting stuff, I wonder how these match up with franchise valuation? That’d be an interesting thing to see as well. I don’t think the NFL sees it clearly yet. They are going to need a groundswell to get the NFL network on every cable tv in the country and that is the goldmine ahead of them.
Thanks for sharing.
Great info. I was curious to know the activity of all o the franchises and you’ve summed it up here. The league is slowly embracing social media, but the problem is that there’s no cookie-cutter strategy that could fit each team the same way becuase no 2 teams are alike and, similarly, no two teams’ fans are the same. It’ll be interesting to see how their efforts increase as more talk about the need for a social media presence continues.
Interesting quick read, thanks for the info. The Giants and Saints should be pretty embarrassed by the lack of presence.
One question: Your grid lists the Patriots as having the most Twitter followers with 30k but the text claims the Chargers as No. 1 with 28k so…which is it?
Thanks again–Mike
Thanks for catching that Mike, I accidently missed them.
@realpatriots has 30K+ followers and is labeled as their official presence. There is also @patriotsdotcom with 6K+ followers that includes content from patriots.com.