Social Media Winners of the Champions League Final

BetXpert has collected data for which players in the Champions League final that got the highest number of new followers across Instagram and Twitter. Continue reading to figure out which 10 players won the Champions League Social Media challenge.

The Champions League season has just ended, with Real Madrid’s Vini Jr. scoring the only goal in the final match against Liverpool.

Even though Vinicius Jr. scored the deciding goal, it was in fact their goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, being awarded the Man of the Match. Getting to the final was sometimes hard, with French striker Benzema getting a lot of attention during the playoffs. Benzema didn’t only play a big part of getting Real Madrid to the final; he also won the battle on the two Social Media platforms, Instagram, and Twitter.

Data collected by BetXpert is showing the number of new followers gained on the two platforms, by every player, in the final. Firstly, we collected data directly after the respective semi-finals had been played on 3rd and 4th May. Thereafter, we collected data directly after the final, and then again after 12 hours had passed.

We did this to see what a Champions League final and the players’ performance does when it comes to followers in social media.

Performing well in the Champions League final will significantly increase the number of new followers, as shown below.

Karim Benzema won the Instagram battle

Benzema had the biggest increase in new followers on Instagram. He received a total of 2.8 million new followers from right before the semi-final and directly after the final. 12 hours later he had gained an additional 200.000 followers.

Karim Benzema went from having 50.6 million followers on Instagram on May 4th to having 53.4 million after the final. This is an increase of 5,5%.

Benzema is not the only one who could smile after seeing the number of followers gained after the final. See the list of the top 10 players who received the highest number of new followers on Instagram below.

Benzema won the Twitter battle

On Twitter Benzema went from having 15.2 million to 15.7 million followers after the final. That half a million new followers is only an increase of 3,3%.

These are the players who got the highest number of new followers on Twitter between the Champions League semi-final and final.

Instagram and Twitter combined

As Benzema is the player with the highest number of new followers on both Instagram and Twitter, he is also the one winning the Social Media battle overall. The player with the highest number of followers overall is Marcelo, but he couldn’t get close to Benzema. However, which other players had success over the course?

The table below shows us that especially Vini Jr. and and Rodrygo also received many followers.

The two managers

The team is more than the players, and with that in mind there is others that can happily look at what getting their team to the Champions League final can bring from social media. Read Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti went from having 7.4 million followers on Instagram to 7.8 million. On Twitter he went from 2.8 million to 2.9 million.

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp is not that interested in social media, which is why we do not have any numbers on him.

On the other hand, we have the numbers for his club.

Liverpool’s official Instagram account went from having 37.7 million followers to 38.7 million. On Twitter they went from 20.4 million to 20.6 million new followers.

Some good results from Liverpool, even though Real Madrid is unbeatable on social media. Los Blancos started with 115 million followers on Instagram and 41.4 million on Twitter, to now 118 million and 42 million.

Social Media is a gold mine

For players that have a lot of followers on social media, it can be worth more than having the upper hand on your teammates.

There are big amounts of money if you have enough followers. This is easy to see when Cristiano Ronaldo playing in Manchester United has 446 million followers on Instagram. They say he can pocket about 1.5 million GBP for a sponsored post.

This amount of money is not what the players in the 2022 Champions League final is earning, but you can be sure the top 10 players in this article can smile whenever they post something sponsored on their accounts.