Irish sport published more social content in September than a year ago, but the battle for attention grew harder.

The latest Irish Sport Social Media Report from Sport for Business and Olytico tracked 12,679 posts across X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, down nine per cent on August. Those posts generated 3,058,232 public engagements, down five per cent month on month.

TikTok provided the bright spot. Its 741 posts generated 565,483 engagements and 7.2 million views, up 19 and 12 per cent, respectively.

The year-on-year comparison tells an increasingly familiar story. September 2025 produced 12,600 posts and 4.78 million engagements, so publishing volume is effectively unchanged while public engagement has fallen by around 36 per cent. In September 2024, the four platforms generated just over 4.16 million engagements from fewer than 11,000 posts.

Go back to the Rugby World Cup month of September 2023, and the difference is greater still. X, Facebook and Instagram alone generated close to 8.17 million engagements, with TikTok adding another 1.43 million. It remains an exceptional benchmark, but it reinforces a theme running through the 2026 numbers: Irish sport is producing considerably more content without necessarily securing more attention in return.

 

X – Ireland Football Cuts Through as the Platform Rebounds

 

 

X delivered one of September’s few month-on-month engagement increases.

Activity fell 12 per cent to 3,913 posts, but those posts generated 126,119 engagements, up 51 per cent from August. The NIFL remained the most active account with 698 posts, just ahead of the League of Ireland on 674, while Dublin GAA increased its output to 449.

There was a particularly interesting lesson in Dublin’s performance. Its three most engaged-with posts all came from the archive, revisiting Stephen Cluxton, Dean Rock and Eoin Murchan moments from previous All-Ireland campaigns. Older material, when attached to a strong sporting memory and given the right timing, can still perform as effectively as something created yesterday.

Ireland Football led average engagement per post at 689, with Irish Rugby next on 68 and Athletics Ireland on 48. The League of Ireland led the engagement-per-1,000-followers ranking at 243, ahead of Ireland Football at 194 and the FAI at 127.

The Ireland Football figure is particularly strong compared with previous reports. The account averaged 254 engagements per post in September 2025, 434 in 2024 and 445 in 2023. Its 689 this September is therefore the strongest of those four years, even as the platform itself is generating far fewer interactions overall.

That wider contraction remains substantial. September X engagement has fallen from 493,892 in 2023 to 269,243 in 2024, 153,826 in 2025 and 126,119 this year. The decline from the Rugby World Cup-influenced 2023 figure is almost three-quarters. It will be interesting to see if next year’s Rugby World Cup, albeit at less viewer-friendly times, can stem what might otherwise be a near-terminal decline.

The ability of the right sporting moment to travel has not disappeared. The platform may now offer a smaller overall pool of engagement, but Ireland Football’s numbers and the continued strength of football content suggest considerable value when immediacy, humour, or a notable moment comes together.

Facebook – FAI Leads Engagement, but the Overall Audience Falls Away

 

 

Facebook had a more difficult September.

Activity dropped eight per cent to 4,384 posts, while public engagements fell 38 per cent to 468,041. The NIFL again led in output with 685 posts, ahead of the League of Ireland (570) and Dublin GAA (253).

The FAI topped average engagement per post with 871, up 183 per cent from August. Ulster Rugby followed on with 599, with its remembrance of Nevin, Noel and Graham Spence among its strongest content, while the Northern Ireland National Team averaged 407 following a successful night in Tbilisi.

Squash Ireland offered another example of why relative engagement deserves attention alongside the biggest headline numbers. It led Facebook’s engagements-per-1,000-followers table at 739, followed by Boxing Ireland on 609 and the NIFL on 560.

The month’s standout Facebook post came from the FAI, celebrating Troy Parrott scoring the winner against Real Madrid on his LaLiga home debut for Real Betis. It had generated more than 11,000 public engagements at the point of reporting.

The historical comparison, though, shows how subdued the overall Facebook month was.

September 2025 produced 1.16 million engagements from 4,053 posts, meaning organisations published more this year while generating around 60 per cent fewer engagements. September 2024 recorded 589,298 engagements from 3,382 posts, while September 2023, powered by the Rugby World Cup, generated close to 1.35 million from only 3,018 posts.

The engagement-per-1,000-followers benchmark has also fallen. Squash Ireland’s 739 led this September, compared with 1,360 for the same organisation in 2025, 1,668 for Paralympics Ireland in 2024 and 2,705 for IWA Sport in 2023.

That does not make Facebook irrelevant. The platform continues to produce very large breakout audiences — as Cricket Ireland demonstrated with its viral Curtis Campher content only a year ago — but September 2026 reminded us that exceptional posts are becoming increasingly important to lift overall performance.

 

Instagram – Ireland Football Takes the Lead in a More Competitive Feed

 

 

Instagram remains the biggest contributor to engagement, but September also highlighted how much harder it has become to get a similar return as before.

Activity fell 11 per cent from August to 3,641 posts, while engagements were almost unchanged at 1,898,589, down just one per cent. That means Instagram still delivered more than 62 per cent of all public engagements measured across the four channels.

The NIFL led activity with 672 posts, followed by the League of Ireland on 587 and Boxing Ireland on 177. Paralympics Ireland dramatically increased its output as Ciarán O’Toole and pilot Con Scully made their World Championship debuts, while Horse Racing Ireland also stepped up activity around Listowel.

Ireland Football led engagement, averaging 6,626 interactions per Instagram post.

The GAA was second on 5,107, Munster Rugby third on 1,484, with Leinster and Ulster Rugby also performing strongly as the rugby season gathered pace.

Ireland Football’s September average stands out against previous years: 4,071 in 2025, 5,230 in 2024 and 6,240 in 2023. This year’s 6,626 is the account’s highest September average across that four-year comparison.

Its leading content also provided one of the month’s strongest examples of sport connecting through something bigger than the result itself. A post wishing Katie Taylor good luck ahead of her final and historic bout at Croke Park generated more than 70,000 engagements, making it the leading Instagram post in the September analysis.

Individual performance contrasts sharply with the wider platform trend.

September 2026’s 1.90 million Instagram engagements compare with 2.89 million last year, 2.78 million in 2024 and an extraordinary 6.33 million in Rugby World Cup September 2023. Yet the number of posts has gone the other way: 3,641 this year, up from 3,332 in 2025, 2,536 in 2024, and only 2,042 in 2023.

Compared with September 2023, Instagram publishing has risen by almost 80 per cent, while engagement has fallen by roughly 70 per cent.

That is perhaps the clearest illustration anywhere in this month’s report of the changing attention economy.

The League of Ireland led engagements per 1,000 followers this month at 2,072, ahead of NIFL at 1,999 and the SSE Airtricity Women’s Premier Division at 1,884. Again, historical benchmarks were higher: Athletics Ireland led at 4,669 in 2025, Paralympics Ireland at 6,890 in 2024 and Irish Rugby at 4,251 in 2023.

Instagram remains the report’s most powerful engagement platform. The issue is not whether sport needs to be there, but how it can stand out in an increasingly crowded feed.

 

TikTok – Growing Output and a Return to Growth

 

 

TikTok supplied September’s clearest positive trend.

Member organisations posted 741 videos, up 15 per cent on August. They generated 565,483 engagements, up 19 per cent, and 7.2 million views, up 12 per cent. Sport for Business – Olytico Se…

The NIFL remained the most active account with 165 posts, but major championship coverage drove the biggest increase. Boxing Ireland posted 118 times, including 71 videos around the European Elite Championships in Sofia, while Paralympics Ireland produced 79 during the World Championships.

Ireland Football’s engagement was on another level. Its 12,615 engagements per post were more than four times the next-highest figure, ahead of Ulster Rugby (3,030) and Northern Ireland (2,827).

Three organisations passed one million monthly views: Ireland Football on 1.5 million, the URC on 1.4 million and the League of Ireland on 1.1 million.

The month’s biggest single TikTok came from the League of Ireland. Stephen Walsh’s spectacular Galway goal generated 411,417 views and 64,426 engagements, accounting for 60 per cent of all League of Ireland TikTok engagement during the month, 36 per cent of its views and a third of all its shares.

@leagueofireland

Stephen Walsh, that is INCREDIBLE 🚀 Walsh fires Galway in front with one of the best goals you'll ever see.

♬ original sound – League of Ireland

That is an extraordinary illustration of how one piece of content can reshape a month’s numbers.

Archive content again deserves mention. Six Dublin GAA “On This Day” videos generated 52 per cent of its TikTok engagement from just 14 per cent of its posts, while Northern Ireland’s retrospective marking the 20th anniversary of its victory over Spain also performed strongly.

TikTok’s longer-term numbers tell a story of continued growth in publishing.

Only 205 TikToks were posted in September 2023, rising to 238 in 2024 and 741 this year. Yet views moved in the opposite direction from that early peak: more than 17 million in 2023, 7.9 million in 2024, 8.36 million in 2025 and 7.2 million this September.

Engagement in 2026 is slightly ahead of September 2024’s 528,596, but remains well below the more than 1.4 million generated during the Rugby World Cup month of 2023. Ireland Football’s current average engagement per post of 12,615 is also below 14,993 in 2024 and 18,398 in 2023.

Encouragingly, TikTok has grown views and engagement for two consecutive months after the sharp summer decline. It remains to be seen whether that can be sustained as organisations continue to increase what they publish.

 

 

Sport for Business Perspective

There were effectively the same number of posts this September as a year ago — 12,679 against 12,600 — but around 1.7 million fewer public engagements.

Instagram provides an even longer illustration. Irish sporting organisations are producing almost 80 per cent more content than they did in September 2023 while generating barely 30 per cent of that month’s engagement.

That should concern social media managers and anyone investing in the medium long term.  It remains an essential part of a sport’s storytelling but it is getting harder to engage viewers in a meaningful way.

Ireland Football achieved its best September average engagement per post of the past four years on both X and Instagram. The FAI found significant traction on Facebook. The League of Ireland turned one Galway goal into an enormous TikTok result. Squash Ireland demonstrated the continuing value of measuring engagement relative to audience size. Dublin GAA showed that the digital archive is an asset, not just a record of the past.

The common thread is relevance, timing and recognising the moment that an audience will want to share.

As the feeds get busier, that is becoming the real competitive advantage in Irish sport’s social media performance.

The Irish Sport Social Media Report is produced for Sport for Business by Olytico. The analysis is based on publicly available information and does not include paid or promoted content. 

 

 

 

Olytico and all of the sporting bodies featured in this analysis are full members of Sport for Business.

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Image Credit: Sport for Business and Olytico

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