Ranking North American Major League Sports Teams by Twitter Followers (February 2021)

Following the conclusion of the 2020 NFL Season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’s triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV, there will be some assessment on where the 32 franchises of the National Football League stand going into the offseason. Analysts will look at salary cap, draft picks, and other figures to determine which teams are poised for success in the near future. For this article, I am interested in a different potential metric of success.

The influence of social media in the sports world grows exponentially each year. Because of that, you (or more likely just me) may be curious how your favorite NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB team fares against other teams in their leagues with their social media presence. While the number of Twitter followers isn’t the most exact science given the large number of media members who follow every team in one or multiple leagues, it does paint a picture of which teams are considered the most relevant whether it be from a big picture perspective or a reflection of recent trends. All numbers were recorded on February 7, 2021 following the Super Bowl. Below are the teams of the four traditional major sports leagues of Canada and the United States ranked from most to least followers, with some brief observations for each league.

National Basketball Association

1st 9.5M Los Angeles Lakers