How social media influences sports

If you are not a fan of any sports, chances are, your Facebook news feed is probably full of photos and videos of famous soccer players anyway. Not mentioning the important matches when the whole of social media is converted into a large virtual stadium, where everybody shouts “GOAL”. Apparently, 80% of sports fans interact on social media whilst watching the game.

Social media embraces every aspect of our lives and sport is not an exception. Find more amazing facts on how social media influences sports in the infographic compiled by experts from bettingsites.

Sports on Social Media vs Sports on TV

Sports are being heavily live streamed in 2017, millions of sports videos are being shared on a daily basis on social media channels. This results in significant losses to traditional TV sports channels. ESPN lost 621,000 subscribers and $52 million in revenue in 2016. Social media brings in the opportunity of fast responses and interactions. During the 2015 Super Bowl, from the beginning to the end it was tweeted 43.4 million times.

Soccer clubs and their social media pages

Famous soccer clubs have millions of followers and subscribers. Real Madrid has 104.7 million fans on Facebook, FCB 102.8 million, and these numbers are getting bigger every day. The fact is, for each social media follower soccer clubs raise their revenue by 10 EUR on average. TCU claims they have increased game attendance by 24% in 7 weeks using an effective social media strategy.

Soccer stars are social media stars

Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar are the top soccer social media stars. They are followed by millions of fans and their photos and videos go viral every day. 

Their social media pages are great assets. These stars are earning thousands of dollars just tweeting random advertising content. Cristiano Ronaldo’s potential earning from a tweet mentioning a brand will generate him a staggering $260,490.

On the day of important matches, fans use Facebook 5-8 times more.  It is time to go online and utilise social media.