A conversation that was naturally celebrated on social media - by UEFA, the associations, players and fans. However, Flashscore also looks at the bare social media figures for EURO 2024. Together with the renowned online data analysts from Result Sports, we shed light on the most important facts, figures and data from the social media profiles of the participating associations and players.
Lamine Yamal puts everyone in the shade
The 16-year-old youngster from the newly crowned European champions was not only voted player of the tournament but also shot through the roof with his social media presence. Within four weeks, Yamal gained an incredible 13 million followers. With a total of almost 25 million followers, this represents an increase of around 52%. With 15 million followers, Instagram is Yamal's strongest social media channel, followed by TikTok with nine million followers.
Mario Leo, CEO of Result Sports, is impressed by the phenomenon that is Yamal: "An exceptional talent. He will make great leaps in his development because he has huge potential at the age of 16. Even Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi weren't ready at that age. The same applies to social media. He also benefits from the enormous media multiplier effects that guarantee an additional push during the European Championships.
"If everything continues to go well, Yamal could reach the level of Ronaldo and Messi in terms of sport, media and marketing. There is still a long way to go. But the potential is undoubtedly there and by the 2026 World Cup, it will be much easier to judge where his journey will take him."
Mbappe and CR7 benefit despite a lack of sporting success
In terms of reach increase during the European Championships, two established players follow in second and third place with Kylian Mbappe (+6.2 million followers) and Cristiano Ronaldo (+5.4 million followers). 'CR7' remains the measure of all things in terms of the total number of followers. Across all profiles, more than 917 million people follow the Portuguese superstar. Flashscore already reported on this a few weeks ago.
England's figurehead Jude Bellingham is delighted to have 3.3 million new followers, 3.15 million of which he owes to his Instagram account alone. However, this only puts Bellingham in fifth place in the standings, because - quite surprisingly - Germany's Joshua Kimmich also recorded a large increase in followers. 3.4 million people have clicked follow on his profiles. An interesting detail compared to the other players mentioned: Kimmich's increase in reach was mainly on Facebook, where he gained 3.3 million new followers.
Three Lions close the gap on Les Bleus
Among the participating nations, England emerged as the social media winner of the European Championships in Germany. The Three Lions recorded an increase of 4.8 million followers. This means that 43.4 million people are already following the FA's profiles. Only France has more social media fans with around 51.8 million followers, which recorded an increase of 1.9 million during the Euros.
However, Mario Leo also pays tribute to smaller nations for their sporting and media performances in the summer of 2024: "Nations that played a successful or surprisingly strong tournament also benefited on social media during the European Championships. These include Switzerland, Spain, England and the Netherlands, as well as Georgia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. These associations have increased their number of followers by double-digit percentages.
"As you can see, the multiplier effects of the European Championships are huge. In this specific case, the multiplier effects are the immense live and on-demand coverage in TV, radio and print media. Accordingly, very large leaps in growth are possible in a relatively short period."
Georgia left their potential untapped. The Georgian Football Association's social media channels continued to be used in the national language during the tournament. Mario Leo is surprised: "Strategically, it would have been better to post in English to reach even more people internationally."
Another new feature of this European Championship was that the followers of players and national associations became significantly more global. Portugal was able to gain around two million followers during the Euros, around 70% of whom are international fans. Mario Leo refers to this development as "fluid fans", in which the fans of the player profiles also have an increasing influence on the profiles of the national associations.
UEFA with record growth and top support for the participating nations
Despite all the praise for Lamine Yamal and the impressive increases in the reach of the players and national associations, Mario Leo is particularly impressed by the performance of UEFA and the fans.
"Off the pitch, of course, the Dutch fans played a huge role with their left-right song, but also the Scottish bagpipe players in Munich, the German saxophonist and Austria's fans with their funny song about Deutsche Bahn. All entertaining moments that were also packaged and communicated in stories and reels on the profiles of the national associations. It makes the fans feel recognised. I thought it was great that the federations didn't just focus on the matches themselves, but celebrated the whole event experience on their social media channels.
"As for the matches, collab posts between UEFA and the associations were fantastically realised. Video scenes and photos were not only available extremely quickly, but were also delivered in very high quality. This allowed everyone involved to tell great stories in record time. The biggest winner is therefore UEFA itself, which was able to attract an incredible 22 million new followers to its social media profiles - an increase of 26% within four weeks."
Methodology: Result Sports analysed extensive social media data from UEFA and participating nations and players at EURO 2024. The data was analysed from June 12th, 2024 until July 16th, 2024.