The fans who stare at GOATS: are star footballers bigger than clubs?

When Cristiano Ronaldo was unveiled by Al-Nassr on Dec. 31, 2022, the Portuguese journalist Pedro Sepuleda reported that the footage received more than 3.5 billion views globally.

It was a sizeable claim in every respect. After all, viewing figures for the FIFA World Cup Final in Qatar less than two weeks earlier had peaked at 1.5 billion. Were we to believe that twice that number were interested in watching “CR7” parade around King Abdullah Sports City than tune in to see Argentina face France for the biggest prize in football?

Well, yes, actually.

How superstar players can affect a club profile

Whether those 3.5 billion views were even close to being accurate or not — and many Reddit threads are devoted to the contrary — you could bet your life that the vast majority had not heard of Al-Nassr Club prior to Ronaldo’s move to Riyadh. Overnight the club’s Instagram figures rocketed from 850,000 to more than 10 million. At time of writing, almost 11 months later, they sit at 20.8 million — more than AC Milan, Newcastle United, Atletico Madrid and many more established UEFA Champions League sides.

This was not an isolated incident of player power on social media.

When Lionel Messi arrived at Inter Miami just seven months later, the five-year-old club saw a boost of more than 10 million Instagram followers. Numbers that made the David Beckham-owned side the most followed MLS team on the platform. It also ensured that they surpassed all NFL, MLB, and NHL clubs to become the fourth most-followed sporting franchise in the US.

Supporting the player, not the club

“I used to be a huge Manchester United and Cristiano Ronaldo fan when I was younger,” says Hamza Waqar from Dubai. “Then I saw how beautifully this No. 10 named