Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James: Two athletes with millions of followers around the world
According to ESPN World Fame 100 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo is the athlete with the most followers in the world
The sports world would not be the same without the fervor and the faithful accompaniment that fans provide permanently. The fans are those who support the team that they chose to follow since their childhood or that their parents encouraged them to support fervently and unconditionally. However, sometimes many fans choose to follow a player over a club. Here are two examples of this phenomenon.
Leer en español: Cristiano Ronaldo y LeBron James: Dos deportistas que mueven millones de seguidores
CR7's millions of followers
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best players in soccer's history, so he has fans all over the world. ESPN World Fame 100 2018, a ranking that calculates the athletes’ fame and records their number of followers on Instagram and Twitter, said that the Portuguese is the athlete with more followers in the world. According to the ranking, CR7 accumulates a figure close to 121.7 million of followers.
Recently, CR7 left Real Madrid to sign with Juventus of Italy. For that reason, his tens of millions of followers were mobilized according to this change in his sports career. Not only they boosted the sale of Juventus' shirts, but they also stop following the social networks of the Real Madrid.
"The news that Ronaldo accepted the offer from Juventus caused many fans to stop following the Real Madrid account in Spanish (Twitter). Before the departure of CR7, the Iberian club had 31.9 million followers and after confirming the movement of the Portuguese, the team now has 31.2 million followers," said ESPN. This demonstrate the fast mobilization of fans of the former star of the merengues.
As mentioned above, CR7’s fans boosted the social networks and the brand of the Juventus. "Since the Juventus officialized the signing of Cristiano, it social networks have experienced a growth that had not known so far. Just look at its numbers on Twitter. Right now, it has 6.16 million followers, a figure that has increased in just a few hours. And in just two days have gained 1.1 million followers," said the newspaper AS.
"Within 24 hours of its official transfer last Tuesday, Juventus had sold 520,000 shirts with his name," explained The Guardian. Both Real Madrid and Juventus have seen the effect that Cristiano Ronaldo has, as well as his millions of fans and the new dynamics of fans to unconditionally follow an athlete instead of a club.
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LeBron and his impact in Los Angeles
The NBA has seen LeBron James, since his debut in 2003, became one of the best basketball players in the history, that is why he has a huge fan base. James is the second athlete in the ranking of the ESPN World Fame 100 2018. With 40.8 million followers, LeBron is only behind the Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo.
The more than 40 million fans follow the American blindly, for that reason they triggered an inevitable transfer when the basketball player left the Cleveland Cavaliers to sign with Los Angeles Lakers. "If the Lakers fan base was already strong enough, it's about to be invaded by people who have followed LeBron from Cleveland to Miami and back to Cleveland as he walked back and forth in the Eastern Conference," said the Los Angeles Times.
The millions of followers of “the king", and everything that the player himself means, will provide a monumental economic impact. "A study by FormSwift reveals that his arrival will have an astronomical result in the four years of his contract: 396 million dollars of economic impact, 3000 jobs and 29 million in tax benefits for the city," affirmed Expansión. This demonstrate that the millions of followers of a fan can change the economy of entire cities.
The world of sports changes constantly. Today, the new dynamics of the fans have led them to idolize an athlete over the unconditionality loyalty that can be offered to a club. Great Latin American soccer players like Messi and Neymar occupy the third and fourth positions in the World Fame 100 2018 with 88.1 and 90.2 million followers respectively, which means they can have more followers than entire clubs.
Exceptional athletes not only go down in history as sports legends, but now they will also become leaders of masses and empire builders of followers.
LatinAmerican Post | Javier Aldana
Translated from "Cristiano Ronaldo y LeBron James: Dos deportistas que mueven millones de seguidores"
