Social Media and Sport in China | 3.1 Football’s performance on Chinese social media

Basketball is often thought of as China’s most popular sport, and the NBA, with more than 70m Chinese social media followers, as the best-loved sports brand. But football is growing, and comparisons with the NBA are somewhat unfair. The NBA’s brand is a unified, massive presence on Weibos, whereas European football leagues and clubs compete with each other more directly for audience share. Indeed, there are around 70m followers across the 35 active European football teams on Chinese social media.