Here is a list I've compiled of the most followed professional sport teams on sociall media all across the wolrd. I thought it would be interesting to share it here: https://www.international-football.net/social-clubs-2019 Followers are cumulated out of 4 social networks: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Weibo. The latter is the most followen social network in China. All professional sport teams with more than 1 million cumulated followers on those 4 social networks are listed here. If you see any team missing, please tell me so that I can add it. The list currently groups 347 teams in 48 different countries. The following sports are represented: Football (Soccer): 197 teams (41 countries) Baseball: 36 teams (5 countries) Basketball: 32 teams (3 countries) American football (Gridiron): 32 teams (1 country) Ice hockey: 28 teams (2 countries) Cricket: 22 teams (4 countries) Rugby: 1 team (1 country) Here is the top 15: See full list
Some interesting facts: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have each more followers alone than the 32 NFL teams put together. The best represented league on Weibo is the NBA, however the only Chinese teams making the list are soccer clubs and the most popular team is Manchester United. 5 MLS teams are in the list: LA Galaxy, NYCFC, Seattle Sounders, Orlando City SC and New York Red Bulls. Japan, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are only represented by baseball teams. Most popular teams in Australia are cricket teams, like in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Remember that this list is global and not limited to the US. The data which is shown here is public and pretty easy to check. For instance Real Madrid has 110 million followers on its Facebook page, whereas the NY Yankees have 8 million: https://www.facebook.com/RealMadrid/ https://www.facebook.com/Yankees/
Your numbers are a little off. You said 347, but the sum of the numbers you gave for each sport is 348, and the site lists 355. Different countries, sports, and leagues could have a different percent of the news about the team and discussion between fans done on social media made by the club as opposed to general sports sites or here. There's no way of doing this comprehensively, but to get a complete picture you would need to track article views about signings, transfers, and trades; along with message boards in different languages; and maybe other things. Since Canada's top sport is hockey, how come the Raptors and Blue Jays are so much more popular than the Maple Leafs. Even taking out the Raptors' followers on Weibo, they would be way above any other Canadian team. Are there people in Buffalo who root for the Raptors but not the Maple Leafs because Buffalo has a team competing with the latter but not the former? Even so, Toronto is a much bigger city than Buffalo?
Since I've posted this thread, I've indeed added 8 teams: 2 Basketball teams (Fenerbahçe Beko in Turkey and Barangay Ginebra in the Philippines) and 6 Pro Kabaddi teams. Kabaddi is an Indian sport I wasn't aware of. I haven't an explanation for everything, I think those figures give more an idea about teams global reach rather than they size true supporters communities, that's not its purpose. What is clear, and the figures show it well, is that the NBA is the North American league which is the most exported internationally. Toronto Raptors just won its first NBA title which has probably attracted very international people having little connection with the city of Toronto. As for the Blue Jays, I have no clue. I've just compiled the stats as I've found them. Sporting cultures are inherently local, and it's difficult if not impossible to compare those at an international level because criterias for that will necessarily be subjective. However, in the current era of globalization it is interesting nevertheless to compare the global reach at a true international level. I thought social media were interesting for that because they are available in most of the world, and I've added Weibo specifically to limit the bias regarding social media restrictions in China. Of course, there are still biases, but from a strictly demographic point of view, I believe there is still something interesting to learn out of it.