By Declan Jordan
In Soccernomics (though I prefer the title on this side of the Atlantic - Why England Lose), Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski claim that Norway loves football most. This is based on participation rates, attendance at games and TV viewing of football. They don't have a similar study for clubs but there were reports last year that Manchester United were the most supported football club in the world with a fan base of 659 million fans. These results are very doubtful. It would mean 1 in 10 of the entire world population support Manchester United and the fan base is larger than the population of every country except India and China. The survey may be estimating awareness rather than support.
Social media is emerging as a new way to get insight into clubs' fan base. By no means are they without limitations. For example, I could follow Manchester City's twitter account to keep an eye on what the noisy neighbours are up to (I don't), which shows that following doesn't mean supporting in this context. Also. it is limited to those with twitter accounts or Facebook pages (and pc's and internet access).
However, it is easier to get an indication of global reach and it indicates an active interest in a club rather than the passive awareness of one.
On July 10 this year @manutd was launched as the verified Manchester United twitter account and the fund for the day was to watch the number of followers grow with each refresh. It is now at about 600,000 followers.
However, it is easier to get an indication of global reach and it indicates an active interest in a club rather than the passive awareness of one.
On July 10 this year @manutd was launched as the verified Manchester United twitter account and the fund for the day was to watch the number of followers grow with each refresh. It is now at about 600,000 followers.
This report from Forbes, which combines Facebook and Twitter followers and friends shows that Barcelona and Real Madrid are quite a distance ahead in social media popularity, followed by Manchester United after a large gap and then Chelsea, AC Milan and Arsenal. The only club from another sport competing with the latter clubs are the LA Lakers.
Reinforcing the idea in another Stefan Szymanski book - National Pastimes: How Americans play baseball and the rest of the world plays soccer - it is clear from the social media list just how the global reach for football outstrips that for large US sports franchises. Barcelona have more social media fans than the 30 most valuable major league baseball teams combined.
This will prove to be an important source of data on clubs' off-field performance, especially as the data gets mined for interactions (such as Facebook likes and retweets on Twitter).
Reinforcing the idea in another Stefan Szymanski book - National Pastimes: How Americans play baseball and the rest of the world plays soccer - it is clear from the social media list just how the global reach for football outstrips that for large US sports franchises. Barcelona have more social media fans than the 30 most valuable major league baseball teams combined.
This will prove to be an important source of data on clubs' off-field performance, especially as the data gets mined for interactions (such as Facebook likes and retweets on Twitter).
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