Ever wondered which MLS team boast the most engaging fans? We’ve revealed the teams that have the most active fan base on social media.
The MLS season is well underway with hope and excitement of each team building as the weeks go on.
The league is now home to some of the best players to ever play the game with multiple World Cup, Champions League, and even Ballon d’Or winners making the move over to the states.
All the franchises promote their teams across social media, but which fans are the most engaged in the MLS?
To find out, football betting site Betway used social listening tools such as Brandwatch and Social Blade to analyse the numbers across X and Instagram to see which teams have the most active fans on social media.
Most engaging fanbases in the MLS
It comes as no surprise to see Inter Miami CF topped the rankings as having the most active fanbase on social media.
The team formed by former England captain David Beckham, made huge moves in 2023 adding in the likes of Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and arguably the best soccer player to have played the game in Lionel Messi.
Adding Luis Suarez into the mix has only boosted the hype around Inter Miami where they had almost 200,000 average likes per post on Instagram over the past year.
Looking at the Western Conference, the conference winners St. Louis City SC topped the rankings, but overall were second behind Inter Miami.
In their inaugural season, St. Louis became the first expansion team to win their conference in their very first season, however, they fell short in the playoffs to Sporting Kansas City.
However, St. Louis City SC had the most mentions on social media over the past year with 364,240 on X and Instagram.
Here are the detailed tables:
Eastern Conference
Rank | Team | Total mentions | Engagement Rate | Avg. likes per post | Engagement score |
1 | Inter Miami | 340,060 | 1.21 | 197,824 | 2.823 |
2 | Nashville SC | 51,850 | 1.47 | 2,310 | 1.153 |
3 | FC Cincinnati | 88,390 | 1.06 | 1,769 | 0.980 |
4 | Columbus Crew | 43,490 | 1.16 | 2,538 | 0.918 |
5 | Chicago Fire | 37,800 | 1.02 | 1,912 | 0.803 |
6 | CF Montreal | 4,490 | 1.16 | 2,112 | 0.800 |
7 | Charlotte FC | 36,920 | 0.94 | 1,866 | 0.746 |
8 | Toronto FC | 18,600 | 0.98 | 3,432 | 0.726 |
9 | Atlanta United | 28,360 | 0.91 | 4,756 | 0.714 |
10 | New England Revolution | 28,040 | 0.93 | 1,261 | 0.709 |
11 | New York Red Bulls | 54,780 | 0.78 | 1,910 | 0.690 |
12 | D.C. United | 47,440 | 0.78 | 1,692 | 0.667 |
13 | Philadelphia Union | 69,610 | 0.47 | 1,718 | 0.522 |
14 | Orlando City SC | 56,990 | 0.21 | 838 | 0.304 |
15 | New York City FC* | 38,200 | N/A | N/A | 0.100 |
*Data inconclusive
Western Conference
Rank | Team | Total mentions | Engagement Rate | Avg. likes per post | Engagement score |
1 | St. Louis City | 364,240 | 1.450 | 2,271 | 2.412 |
2 | Los Angeles FC | 210,210 | 0.450 | 3,838 | 1.473 |
3 | LA Galaxy | 141,800 | 0.300 | 4,772 | 1.368 |
4 | Minnesota United | 79,090 | 1.210 | 1,616 | 1.239 |
5 | Real Salt Lake | 53,100 | 1.240 | 1,707 | 1.212 |
6 | FC Dallas | 34,770 | 1.170 | 2,129 | 1.199 |
7 | Sporting Kansas City | 36,690 | 0.920 | 1,907 | 0.934 |
8 | Houston Dynamos | 46,610 | 0.870 | 1,931 | 0.925 |
9 | Seattle Sounders | 35,080 | 0.610 | 2,300 | 0.753 |
10 | Austin FC | 29,840 | 0.800 | 1,648 | 0.750 |
11 | Portland Timbers | 15,310 | 0.650 | 1,214 | 0.476 |
12 | San Jose Earthquakes | 41,200 | 0.600 | 997 | 0.455 |
13 | Vancouver Whitecaps | 16,530 | 0.500 | 922 | 0.280 |
14 | Colorado Rapids | 12,400 | 0.440 | 520 | 0.122 |
Looking at the other end of the scale, it was Orlando City SC in the East who were ranked lowest with a score of just 0.304.
Over in the West, it was the Colorado Rapids who were bottom of the pile and had the worst score overall with 0.122.
Methodology
All 29 MLS teams were included in the study, numbers were collected based on total mentions across Instagram and X.
Social listening tools Brandwatch and Social Blade were used to collect total mentions, engagement rates, and average likes per post.
The factors were then weighted as follows:
– Total number of online mentions: the higher the values, the higher the ranking
– Engagement %: the higher the values, the higher the ranking
– Avg. likes per post: the higher the values, the higher the ranking
Data collected between March 2023 to March 2024.
All data correct of March 2024.
