Cristiano Ronaldo finished second to Lionel Messi in the FIFA Balloon d’Or voting announced last month. Messi now leads Ronaldo five to three for the award that crowns the top soccer player in the world. The pair have had a stranglehold on the sport’s top honor for the past eight years. But when it comes to social media followings, Messi can’t touch Ronaldo.
Ronaldo became the first athlete to reach 200 million combined followers across TwitterTWTR -1.39%, Instagram and Facebook FB -0.67%, according to Hookit, which tracks and values the sports ecosystem on social and digital media. His social following is 64% larger than Messi’s, who is not on Twitter. Ronaldo became the first athlete to cross the 100 million barrier on Facebook in 2014, and today he is the third celebrity to cross the 200 million threshold across the three major platforms. Ronaldo joins Justin Bieber andTaylor Swift in the 200 million club.
The social breakdown for Ronaldo is 109.7 million fans on Facebook, 49.6 million on Instagram and 40.7 million on Twitter. Seven-four percent of his 41.8 million new followers in 2015 were on Instagram.
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