Football is the most popular sport in the world, with an estimated total of 3.5 billion fans. The English Premier League is widely regarded as the top league in the world, with passionate fans from all over filling stadiums and sharing support via social media.
To find out which UK team was the most popular according to social media, sportswear providers Decathlon gathered data on the number of followers each team have on different social platforms, covering Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, and Youtube.
The data revealed that out of the eight South West based clubs, Bournemouth were the most popular South West club with 1.9 million followers.
The data also revealed that:
- Bristol City were the second most popular team in the South West of England with a total of 470.6K followers.
- Exeter have a total of 307.2K followers, making them the third most popular club in the South West.
- Bristol Rovers were the fifth most popular club in the East Midlands, with a total of 242.9K followers.
Will Taylor, UK Football Leader from Decathlon, said: “Many football fans get extremely excited and passionate when it comes to local derbies! It’s interesting to see the regional clubs popularity on social media and how this might tie to the clubs successes”
Bournemouth have grown their followers over the years after rising from League One to the Premier League, despite being regulated to the Championship League in 2020.
Will continued: “Big signings, successes and the league a club is in clearly helps with their popularity off the pitch. With many Premier League footballers becoming huge celebrities and the general interest in celebrities lives, it’s easy to see why certain teams grow so much on social media.”
Decathlon also gathered data on the Premier League, Championship League, League One and League Two to see how social media followers may differ depending on the size of the clubs, and also see which team was the most popular. You can view this data here.