Social Media Followers and the Popularity of NFL Teams

While the Chiefs have dominated play in the NFL over the past three seasons, I will make the case that the Super Bowl of social media followers would match the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles.

We live in a divided nation. Sure, political views can lead to passionate arguments, end friendships, and cause a rift during Thanksgiving dinner. The division I’m writing about has nothing to do with politics but rather our nation’s NFL rooting interests. Depending on current and childhood geography and professional employers of college stars, many of us choose to root for one of 32 professional football teams. An obvious question quickly surfaces: which teams are the most popular? This question has been answered in various ways like television ratings, merchandise sales, and game-day attendance. I will attempt to look at it through the prism of social media. Total followers on various platforms will shed some obvious light, but I will also dig deeper to investigate the bandwagon effect based on recent team success and the size of local television markets.

Aggregate followers of NFL teams on various social media platforms

I collected the social media data for this article in September 2024 and investigated the number of followers of all 32 NFL teams on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Total followers for each team on each platform appear in Table 1. Some interesting data gives rise to many conclusions. The New England Patriots have the most followers on both X and Instagram with 4.6 and 5 million followers respectively. The Dallas Cowboys lead the way on Facebook with 8 million followers. The Kansas City Chiefs generate the most interest on TikTok with 4.9 million followers. The Philadelphia Eagles dominate the tally on LinkedIn with 147,000 followers.

What insight can the leaders offer us? All four teams have had relatively recent success on the field. Three of the four (not Kansas City) reside in large media markets. The Cowboys have been called “America’s Team,” dominated the 1970s (along with the Steelers), had a resurgence in the 1990s, and appeal to a middle-aged demographic that marries up to Facebook. The Chiefs are the two-time defending Super Bowl champions and align with many fans from Gen Z, the largest TikTok user base. The Patriots dominated that last decade with the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick duo of excellence and mirrored the highest-growth period of users in X’s and Instagram’s life cycle. The LinkedIn popularity of the Eagles perplexes me a little. They absolutely dwarf the number of followers of their nearest rival, the Cowboys. The Eagles have 81% more business and career-minded LinkedIn followers than Dallas and over 500% more followers than the least followed team, the Saints.

If I rank each team from one to 32 in terms of followers on each social platform and add the ranks (lowest score wins), the Cowboys are indeed America’s Team. They rank one on Facebook, two on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and three on TikTok. The Eagles take second, and the Patriots grab the social media bronze. Aggregate data appears below in Table 2.

The Recent Success Factor

One intuitive theory would be that the most followed teams on social media would be the ones with the highest number of victories in recent years. I debated whether to create some kind of point system for playoff success. It became difficult to correctly weigh how much each playoff appearance and each playoff win should merit. In the end, I decided to look at recent success strictly through the regular season because, in aggregate, the teams enjoying recent playoff success have also won a high percentage of games in the regular season. Table 3 displays in order the total number of regular season wins each NFL team had between the 2020 and 2023 seasons.

I then analyzed in alphabetical order the number of followers each team has on each platform per number of wins over the last four completed regular seasons. This data appears in Table 4.

I then ranked each team from one to 32 for each social media platform with one being the highest followed team per number of wins as seen in Table 5. After, I added the ranks for each team on all five platforms and in the final column of Table 5, ranked each team based on the sum of the five numbers. The teams are ranked in order of the lowest sum (the highest rank). The Panthers rank at the top with their 19 regular-season wins creating the smallest denominator when calculating the number of followers per win.

While the argument could be made that less successful teams have a built-in advantage when it comes to having a higher rank due to having a lower denominator (followers/wins), Table 6 looks at the data a different way. It takes each team’s rank for both wins from 2020 – 2023 and their social media followers per win rank and adds them together. Notice that the Panthers, who have both the lowest number of wins and a rank of 32 and the most followers per win and a rank of 1, have a sum of 33. A score of 33 (excluding ties) is the mean score of all 32 teams, and I would expect it to be near or at the median. Given this, I make the case that the teams with scores less than 33 have more followers per win than projected, and those with a score higher than 33 have fewer followers than projected. The teams at the top (Cowboys, Eagles, 49ers, Steelers, and Chiefs) have metaphorically outkicked their coverage, and the teams at the bottom (Commanders, Titans, Colts, Cardinals, and Jaguars) have muffed the punt.

The TV Market Size Factor

Another intuitive argument can be made that teams in the largest media markets have the highest number of social media followers. More residents equate to more interest in the local teams. Table 7 lays out the size of each television market of all 32 NFL teams.

My next step in this analysis was to divide the number social media followers on each platform by the size of each TV market. This data is displayed in Table 8.

Table 9 then takes the data from Table 8 and assigns each team a rank from 1 to 32 based on the number of social media followers per TV market size. I then took a sum of the ranks and placed them in the last column of Table 9 and ranked the teams from most follows to least.

As was the case with the data on followers per win, one could make the logical argument that the small market teams have an advantage and the large market teams are at a disadvantage due to the size of the denominators in determining the number of followers per market size, and the data in Table 9 backs up this argument. The top five teams (Chiefs, Steelers, Bills, Packers, Saints)  are small-market teams, and the bottom five (Commanders, Giants, Chargers, Rams, and Jets) all play in large markets.

However, if we add the TV market size rank to the social media followers per market size rank, the mean is again 33 like it was for the wins to followers per wins in Table 6. I would also expect the median to be near 33, and in this case, it is. The Jets, Chargers, Rams, and Falcons all hit the 33 number as can be seen in Table 10. Teams with a sum lower than 33 have a number of followers that outperform the expected amount for a team in their respective market size, those with a sum higher than 33 underperform. Viewed this way, Table 10 shows that the Eagles, Cowboys, Patriots, 49ers, and Steelers have a lot of followers for their market size and the Vikings, Cardinals, Browns, Titans, and Jaguars have some catching up to do.

Summary

I think it’s safe to say that the Cowboys and Eagles are in the Super Bowl of social media followers. They both finish first or second in rank of overall followers, overperformance compared to recent success, and overperformance based on TV market size.

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