Irish sport produced more content in July, but the rewards were distributed very differently across the four main social platforms, with Instagram increasingly becoming the centre of gravity for public engagement.

The latest Irish Sport Social Media Report from Sport for Business and Olytico tracked 14,772 posts across X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, up 23 per cent on June, while total public engagement fell 16 per cent month-on-month to 5.59 million.

That headline masks a much more interesting story underneath. Instagram alone delivered 3.904 million engagements, almost 70 per cent of all engagements generated across the four platforms, while Facebook strengthened significantly compared with the same month last year. X continued to lose overall engagement, and TikTok produced more content but substantially fewer views and interactions.

Looked at over a longer timeframe, July 2026 generated broadly the same volume of content as July 2025, when the four channels produced just under 15,000 posts, but around 12 per cent more public engagement. Against July 2024, however, there remains a sizeable Olympic effect: that month produced close to six million engagements on X, Facebook and Instagram before TikTok’s 608,793 engagements are even added to the equation.

The comparison reinforces what has become increasingly clear from the monthly reports: the number of posts is only part of the story. Platform, timing, sporting moment and the ability to turn those moments quickly into compelling content matter much more.

 

X – Shamrock Rovers Find the Moment in a Shrinking Market

 

 

There were 4,511 posts on X in July, 10 per cent more than in June, but they generated only 130,741 public engagements, a month-on-month fall of 41 per cent.

The League of Ireland remained the most active account with 786 posts, ahead of the GAA on 565 and Ladies Football on 528. Irish Rugby delivered the highest average engagement per post, at 231, ahead of Ireland Football at 215 and Shamrock Rovers at 102.

It was Rovers, though, who best demonstrated the value of one outstanding moment. Their image of Pico Lopes facing Lionel Messi at the FIFA World Cup, captioned “The boy from Crumlin”, generated more than 13,000 engagements and was the most engaged-with X post in the July analysis.

 


Rovers also dominated the engagement-per-1,000-followers measure at 634, more than three times the League of Ireland in second on 207. LOI Women were third on 105.

Other highlights included the GAA celebrating Mayo’s triumph, and the Ladies Football account, which shone as Kerry booked their place in the TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship Final after defeating Dublin.

 


Golf Ireland (109, +102%) celebrated as their Men’s Team defeated Estonia to win the 2026 European Amateur Team Championship, and Basketball Ireland (170, +85%) beat Luxembourg to claim fifth place, their highest-ever finish at the FIBA U20 Youth EuroBasket.

 

Irish Rugby recorded the highest average engagements per post on X at 231 (-30%) as the Men’s Senior Team defeated the Wallabies in the Nations Championship, followed by Ireland Football (215, +11%).

 


There is an interesting longer-term picture here. In July 2025, X generated 154,258 engagements from 5,730 posts, meaning activity this year is down by more than a fifth and engagement by around 15 per cent.

The leading engagement-per-post figures, however, have improved: Ireland Football led last July on 122, with Irish Rugby on 100.

The top engagement-per-1,000-followers score in 2025 was the League of Ireland’s 356, compared with Rovers’ 634 this year.

Go back to Olympic July 2024, and the contrast is even greater. There were 6,005 posts and 487,554 engagements, with Team Ireland averaging 534 engagements per post, Ireland Football 504 and Irish Rugby 346. Daniel Wiffen’s Olympic gold generated the month’s biggest X post with more than 16,000 engagements.

The audience is still there on X for the right content, as Shamrock Rovers showed, but there is considerably less engagement to go around than there was two summers ago.

 

Facebook – A Stronger Platform Than the Headline Decline Suggests

 

 

Facebook produced 5,300 posts and 1,149,351 engagements in July. The latter was down sharply from June, although that comparison is distorted by the exceptional impact of Cricket Ireland’s breakthrough series against India a month earlier.

A year-on-year comparison is much more positive.

In July 2025, Facebook generated 758,518 engagements from 4,812 posts. July 2024 saw almost identical engagement: 758,659 from 4,176 posts. This year’s total of 1.15 million is therefore more than 50 per cent higher than either of the previous two Julys, albeit on a greater volume of content.

The League of Ireland was again the most prolific account in July 2026 with 697 posts, followed by the GAA with 603 and the NIFL with 450.

Irish Rugby was the standout for average engagement, generating 2,117 engagements per post, followed by the GAA with 805 and Cricket Ireland with 767. That Irish Rugby figure is more than three times its July 2025 average of 690, although still below the exceptional 3,070 it recorded during the South Africa series and the opening days of the Paris Olympics in July 2024.

The GAA’s improvement is perhaps even more striking. Its average of 805 engagements per post compares with 453 in July 2025 and 277 a year earlier.

When account size is factored in, the July 2026 infographic produces one of the closest contests anywhere in the report. The GAA led Facebook engagement per 1,000 followers at 1,239, fractionally ahead of Squash Ireland at 1,237, with Shamrock Rovers third at 843.

That is also a useful reminder of why the relative engagement measure matters. It creates space for smaller governing bodies to benchmark the strength of their communities against those of much larger organisations, rather than simply measuring absolute numbers.

 

 

Athletics Ireland (294, +135%) celebrated Gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as Kate O’Connor won the women’s heptathlon with 6569 points. Swim Ireland (99, +71%) saw Tom Fannon become Ireland’s fastest ever male swimmer in the 50m Freestyle, and Horse Sport Ireland (160, +55%) celebrated silver at the FEI European Championships with the team of Ted Fagan, Charlie Flynn, Robbie Sheehan, Sam Widger and Jack Dore.

Gymnastics Ireland (134, +605%) saw Laoise Cox break the Irish Record for the trampoline with a score of 53.03, Volleyball Ireland (52, +126%) celebrated success against Malta, and Cycling Ireland (67, -71%) saw Rían McCrystal win the Quanta Capital Junior Tour of Ireland for the National Team.

Cricket Ireland supplied the month’s biggest Facebook post, with Jai Moondra’s Player of the Match recognition following victory over India generating more than 46,000 public engagements.

 

Instagram – The Undisputed Engagement Engine

 

 

Instagram was the standout platform by a distance.

The 4,312 posts published during July represented a 75 per cent increase on June and generated 3,904,341 engagements, up 92 per cent month-on-month and accounting for almost seven out of every ten engagements recorded across the entire report.

The League of Ireland led activity for a third consecutive month across Facebook, Instagram and X, publishing 714 Instagram posts. The NIFL followed on 441, with the GAA on 286.

But this was ultimately the GAA’s month.

Its average engagement per post reached 8,149, ahead of Ireland Football (2,808) and Dublin GAA (1,806). The GAA also led the engagement-per-1,000-followers ranking with 4,824, well clear of Shamrock Rovers on 2,757, Athletics Ireland on 2,565 and the SSE Airtricity Women’s Premier Division on 2,549.

The scale of the performance stands out more strongly than in previous years.

In July 2025, Instagram delivered 3.45 million engagements from 3,964 posts. The GAA led engagement per post on 6,153, and the League of Ireland topped engagement per 1,000 followers on 3,510. This year’s platform engagement is around 13 per cent higher, while the GAA’s average engagement per post has increased by almost a third.

IWA Sport (33, +230%) celebrated as Irish Wheelchair Basketball claimed the silver medal at the City of Barcelona Tournament, and the Ladies Gaelic Football account (238, +222%) crowned Roscommon as the 2026 AirNav Ireland All-Ireland U-16 B Champions.

 

 

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A post shared by IWA SPORT (@iwa_sport)

Vision Sports Ireland (74, +222%) highlighted a great initiative from Shamrock Rovers who offer audio descriptive commentary at all their home games in Tallaght Stadium, Hockey Ireland (530, +91%) announced that they had accepted an invitation to compete at the inaugural FIH Para Hockey World Cup, which will take place from 21–25 August 2026 across Belgium and the Netherlands, and Canoeing Ireland (99, +46%) celebrated an incredible performance from Sean Butterly, who has been crowned Junior Men’s K1 1000m World Champion at the 2026 ICF Junior & U23 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Halifax, Canada.

 

 

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A post shared by Hockey Ireland (@hockey_ireland)

 

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A post shared by Canoeing Ireland (@canoeingireland)

 

Even the Olympic benchmark is favourable in places. July 2024 remains ahead in total Instagram engagement, with 4.71 million engagements from 3,244 posts, but the GAA’s current average of 8,149 engagements per post is above the 7,688 it achieved during that extraordinary sporting month. Irish Rugby was the overall leader in 2024 at 9,610.

The difference this July was the power of championship emotion.

Post-match content around Mayo’s long-awaited All-Ireland success drove the GAA numbers, led by Kobe McDonald’s reaction at the final whistle, which has generated more than 250,000 public engagements.

 

 

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A post shared by Official GAA (@officialgaa)

For context, the most-engaged-with Instagram post in July 2025 from Irish Rugby surpassed 88,000 engagements, while July 2024’s leading Irish Rugby post exceeded 56,000. The scale of this year’s GAA content is therefore exceptional even by the standards of a platform that regularly produces the biggest numbers in the report.

 

 

TikTok – More Content, But the Returns Have Fallen

 

 

TikTok presents almost the reverse picture.

Sport for Business organisations published 649 TikToks during July, up 10 per cent on June. Those posts generated 401,737 engagements and 5.76 million views, down 61 per cent and 68 per cent respectively month-on-month.

The NIFL was the most active account with 91 posts, followed by Boxing Ireland on 88 and the League of Ireland on 73.

Ireland Football remained the strongest organisation on engagement per post with 4,285, ahead of the BKT United Rugby Championship on 3,235 and Shamrock Rovers on 1,581.

The year-on-year comparison underlines how dramatically TikTok performance can fluctuate.

In July 2025, only 492 videos produced 608,899 engagements and 12.16 million views. Ireland Football alone generated 5.14 million views, while three organisations passed one million. Shamrock Rovers led average engagement per post at 12,162, ahead of Ireland Football at 10,628.

In July 2024 there were only 298 TikToks, less than half this year’s output, yet they produced 608,793 engagements and 7.99 million views. Ireland Football averaged an extraordinary 18,637 engagements per post that month. Go back another year, and July 2023 produced 4.37 million views from 252 posts, meaning today’s publishing volume is more than two-and-a-half times higher without a comparable increase in audience response.

There was, however, one important constant.

The BKT United Rugby Championship remains exceptionally reliable on the platform. It was the only organisation to pass one million views this July, generating 1.4 million views from just 28 TikToks. Its “That Connacht Rhythm” video came close to half a million views and generated 22,000 public engagements.

 

@urcThat Connacht rhythm 🦅🎶

♬ original sound – United Rugby Championship


The URC had also generated 1.46 million views in July 2025 and 1.06 million in July 2024. In a platform increasingly governed by volatile recommendation algorithms rather than traditional follower relationships, that consistency is notable.

 

 

The Sport for Business Perspective

July reinforces the danger of treating “social media” as a single channel.

Instagram is currently delivering the greatest depth of engagement and providing Irish sport with the strongest environment for emotional, visual storytelling. Facebook, sometimes too readily dismissed as a mature platform, has delivered a very strong year-on-year performance. X remains important for real-time conversation and the ability of a single moment to travel quickly, but its overall engagement pool continues to contract. TikTok, meanwhile, remains capable of spectacular reach but is proving increasingly difficult to predict.

Perhaps the most important number in the report is therefore not the 14,772 posts published but the divergence in what those posts achieved.

Great sporting moments remain the raw material. The winning organisations are increasingly those that understand where, when, and how to package them for the audience waiting on each individual platform.

The Irish Sport Social Media Report is produced by Sport for Business in partnership with Olytico and is based on publicly available data. It does not include analysis of paid or promoted content.

 

 

 

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Image Credit: Naas GAA and Clover

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