The SSE Airtricity League Premier Division is back tonight with the Men’s First Division and the Women’s Premier Division following over the next two weekends.
There is a new visual look to the League and a real sense of excitement that this will be the best attended, highest quality and most memorable League in recent years.
The return of Cork City to the top flight will add to the regional diversity and brings with it a significant fan base, as can be seen from the League table we have published below on the number of social media followers.
They are in a top four of fan bases that also includes Bohemians, Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk but that does not mean anything when the players cross the white line and BoyleSports Bookies have Derry City as the 13/8 biggest challengers to the defending Champions Shamrock Rovers at 13/8.
Sport for Business will be tracking developments at the clubs and across the three divisions of the League throughout the season with today’s feature being a look at the Twitter following of each of the top flight clubs and how they have improved since 2021.
In the charts above we have listed the current Twitter following of each club from the 51,600 tracking Cork City to the 14,500 following UCD.
Bohemians and Shelbourne have seen the biggest increases in followers in the past two years with Bohs climbing 45.5 percent and Shels increasing by 37.5 percent.
That was enough to nudge Bohs above their Dublin rivals Shamrock Rovers but both still give way to the returning Cork City in terms of their followers.
The total number following the individual clubs has climbed from 281,900 two years ago to 349,600 in 2023, a strong 24.3 percent increase and with another 52,100 following the official League of Ireland account that is an engaged base of over 400,000.
