How many people support Manchester United?

Summary

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More or Less – How many people support Manchester United?

Date: February 18, 2013
Hosts: Ruth Alexander & Wesley Stevenson
Guest Experts: Richard Brinkman (Kantar Sport), Nick Harris (sportingintelligence.com), Michael Wallace (statistician)

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Overview

This episode delves into Manchester United’s widely cited claim of having 659 million followers worldwide—a figure spotlighted during their New York Stock Exchange flotation. Hosts Ruth Alexander and Wesley Stevenson unpack how this number was calculated, interview those behind the statistics, and cast a critical eye on its validity. The discussion also touches on the motivations for such figures, the meaning of “follower,” and statistical quirks around other football phenomena.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origins of the 659 Million Figure (00:44–01:45)

• Manchester United claims 659 million followers, based on Kantar Sport research.
• Real Madrid’s only public figure is 300 million followers, per their communications director.
• Kantar surveyed 54,000 people in 39 countries, then extrapolated globally.
  • Participants asked if they follow sport, football, and who their favorite club is.
  • Adjustments made for Internet and non-Internet populations and historic local player affiliations.

What Does “Follower” Mean? (02:16–02:55)

• The term “follower” is intentionally used instead of “fan.”
  • “Fans tends to have a connotation of people who attend matches. Obviously, in a global and Internet age, followers is a far more varied and wide reaching measure...” – Richard Brinkman (02:25)
• Following isn’t exclusive: People may follow several clubs simultaneously and may have different degrees of engagement.

Scrutinizing the Numbers (03:03–04:43)

• 659 million is more than 1 in 10 of the global adult population—a startling claim.

• Nick Harris of sportingintelligence.com notes previous figures (2007) put worldwide followers at 333 million, suggesting the number doubled in just four years.

  • Raises questions about accuracy and methodological leaps, especially in certain countries (e.g., South Korea).

  Notable Quote:
  “How can it be that you can claim 15 million followers in the nation who are fans of that club, and yet a million or fewer of them can actually be bothered even to watch the games on television?”
  — Nick Harris (03:38)

Methodological Critiques & Possible Inflations (04:43–06:44)

• Kantar’s Richard Brinkman attributes the rise to football and Internet growth.

• Hosts question how local contexts (e.g., a popular South Korean player) skew numbers beyond meaningful engagement.

• Nick Harris posits that the figure’s main function was to impress potential stock investors:

  • “To be able to produce a figure where they can actually say, 659 million people around the world follow our team. That's probably what they wanted to do here.” (05:28)

• Stock market filings disclose 277 million “core fans”—implying about half are casual or less engaged.

  Caveat from Manchester United’s own documentation:
  “As a result of these limitations, our numbers of followers may be significantly less or significantly more than the extrapolated survey results.”
  — From their stock flotation document (06:17)

• Brinkman stands by a 1% margin of error (06:54), but admits assumptions on non-Internet users may not always be accurate.

The Meaningfulness Debate (07:00–07:26)

• Brinkman maintains the survey is the “most robust and sort of comprehensive manner” (07:14), but skepticism remains regarding how meaningful such a wide, loose definition of “follower” is.

• The episode points out the trend among clubs to inflate numbers for marketing.

  Notable Quote:
  “It's just none has ever been this high before, or so much higher than their rivals.”
  — Wesley Stevenson (07:26)

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Bonus Segment: Champions League Draw Probability (07:35–08:55)

A Statistical Coincidence

• UEFA had a rehearsal of the Champions League draw—the real and rehearsal draws resulted in the exact same pairings.

• Statistician Michael Wallace calculates the odds, accounting for various draw restrictions:

  • Starts with 2 million possibilities, narrows down to about 5,500 after imposing match rules.
  • Likelihood of identical draws: similar to flipping 12 heads in a row (~0.02%).

  Memorable Moment:
  “That’s quite unlikely. It’s about the chances of tossing a coin 12 times and getting 12 heads.”
  — Michael Wallace (08:55)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• Manchester United’s follower claims and methodology – 00:44–02:16
• Definition and limitations of “followers” – 02:16–02:55
• Doubts about the survey and its rapid increase – 03:03–04:43
• Motivations for the big number (stock flotation) – 05:28–06:44
• Statistical caveats and meaningfulness debate – 06:17–07:26
• Champions League draw statistical odds – 07:35–08:55

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Summary

This episode of More or Less unpacks the headline-grabbing claim that Manchester United boasts 659 million worldwide followers. Through debates with researchers and critics, it explores how such numbers are constructed, the elasticity of definitions like “follower,” and the commercial incentives that drive football clubs to inflate their stats. Ultimately, the episode raises important questions about data interpretation, survey methodology, and the blurred lines between fandom and marketing metrics. As always, the tone is probing, incisive, and often gently skeptical.

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Transcript

[A]

Thank you for downloading from the BBC. For details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to bbcworldservice.com podcasts

[B]

hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service giving penalties for statistical fouls. I'm Ruth Alexander.

[C]

And I'm Wesley Stevenson. It was the match the world wanted to see. That was according to Real Madrid manager Joe Jose Mourinho. The Champions League clash with Manchester United in the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League lived up to the hype and it ended one all.

[B]

It's said that Real Madrid and Manchester United are two of the biggest teams in the world, but how many fans do they have worldwide?

[C]

At Old Trafford you can see that Manchester United claim more than 600 million followers. Official documents for its flotation on the New York Stock Exchange last year say said that this number is actually 659 million. Now, Real Madrid don't publish a worldwide figure, but their director of communications has been quoted in the past as saying the club has 300 million followers across the world, which is still pretty big.

[B]

But how do they know? How do you survey the world?

[C]

Well, the figure for Manchester United is based on research by a firm called Cantor Sport. Their global head is Richard Brinkman.

[D]

We put the questionnaire to 54,000 people in 39 countries around the world. They were mostly online questionnaires. What we asked them was, do you follow sport? Do you follow football? We then asked them spontaneously to tell me which is your favourite football club. They weren't given a list, they just wrote down their favourite football club. Subsequent to that, do you follow any other football clubs?

[C]

So from this survey of 39 countries, Kantar then extrapolates these numbers to get a worldwide figure. So, so while they didn't survey every country in Africa, for example, they were able to use their results for the countries they did survey to predict the numbers for the other countries. Now, Richard also told me that they try to account for areas that don't have the Internet. They look at past surveys in certain countries to see how popular football is and they also look at things like whether players from particular countries have played for Manchester United in the past 30 years.

[B]

And they come up with this figure of 659 million followers.

[C]

Yes. And they always use followers and not fans. So I asked why.

[D]

Fans tends to have a connotation of people who attend matches. Obviously, in a global and Internet age, followers is a far more varied and wide reaching measure that allows people to know how many people they can potentially engage with.

[C]

But as a follower, is that someone who would say they support Manchester United?

[D]

Yes, I think that's a fair assumption.

[C]

Is that an exclusive thing, or can they follow or will they follow more than one club?

[D]

They will follow more than one club.

[C]

So this is a survey of adults. That means that 659 million adults follow Manchester United worldwide.

[B]

That's more than one in 10 of the world's population, which has raised a few eyebrows. Nick Harris, editor of the sports business website sportingintelligence.com points out that the last figure put out for the number of worldwide followers was 333 million. That was in 2007. So this means that Manchester United have doubled their following in just four years,

[C]

which, if you think about it, is absolutely incredible, if true. Yes. Nick has also looked at the country by country breakdown in these figures and thinks that this throws up some odd results, too.

[E]

Well, according to the survey, I mean, in South Korea, I think it was a third of the population. Now, Manchester United until relatively recently, had a South Korean player called Park Ji Sun. It would not be surprising that Manchester United would be followed in the loosest sense by an enormous amount of people. However, how can it be that you can claim 15 million followers in the nation who are fans of that club, and yet a million or fewer of them can actually be bothered even to watch the games on television?

[C]

So how can these figures be right? I asked Richard Brinkman of Kantar Media how it was that the number of followers doubled between surveys and. And how there can be so many followers in individual countries.

[D]

One is people's exposure to the Premier League and football. Many more people are attached to the Internet. The noise around football could drive that four years. Well, those are the figures that came out. And the number of followers of football, 1.6 billion. Suddenly it seems a bit more of a reasonable figure.

[C]

I mean, there are other figures that are pointed out. 30% of the population of South Korea count themselves as Manchester United supporters, according to this survey. That also seems like an awful lot of people.

[D]

Korea having a Korean player that's played for you for a long time does make a huge difference, but it's not

[C]

really reflected in the number of people who watch the matches in Korea, for example.

[D]

Yeah, I would imagine that if you actually cumulatively look over the course of a season, probably no one won't have seen a Premier League game. Or very, very few.

[B]

Cantor claims that it didn't just come up with the biggest number it could, which makes you wonder how high it could have been. But why was this number published at all. And why did they need such a high number? Nick Harris from Sporting Intelligence has a theory.

[E]

Well, the owners wanted to sell a portion of Manchester United stock on the New York Stock Exchange. They needed to make Manchester United an attractive proposition, particularly to American investors. American sport particularly can be quite insular. Sports fans seem to think that, you know, globally, the. The NBA, basketball and NFL are global sports, but of course they're not to be able to produce a figure where they can actually say, 659 million people around the world follow our team. That's probably what they wanted to do here, to ram home quite how global football is.

[B]

The document that went with that stock market flotation makes interesting reading. First, it claims that 277 million of the 659 million fans are core fans, which raises a question in my mind about how committed the rest are.

[C]

When looking at how Manchester United justifies the number of worldwide followers, I spotted a huge caveat. The stock market document says that although Kantal Media believes their methods are robust, there are inherent limitations with extrapolating results to an audience you haven't surveyed. And I quote, as a result of these limitations, our numbers of followers may be significantly less or significantly more than the extrapolated survey results.

[E]

Hmm.

[B]

So even Manchester United themselves are not entirely convinced they've got 659 million fans.

[C]

I put this to Richard Brinkman of Cantel Media.

[D]

I suspect that's a legal caveat, but I would back my figures to within a 1% margin of error.

[C]

It also says that the assumptions made in looking at those who are non Internet users may reduce the number of followers in particular countries, but that's actually no guarantee that the assumptions that are applied are accurate. Is this figure actually meaningful at all?

[D]

I think it's very meaningful. It's done in the most robust and sort of comprehensive manner.

[B]

Richard Brinkman. Whether it's possible to be accurate or not, football clubs do love to try to count their fans, don't they?

[C]

Yes, they do. Manchester United aren't the only club to put out these sorts of figures. It's just none has ever been this high before or. Or so much higher than their rivals.

[B]

Thanks, Wes. And while we're on the subject, this round of the Champions League did throw up a statistical surprise. UEFA ran a rehearsal of the draw, as it usually does. What was unusual was that the same teams were picked out to play each other in both the rehearsal and the real draw. There's been a lot of debate about what the chances of this are, so we asked statistician Michael Wallace to work it out.

[F]

To answer this question, what we were interested in finding out are how many ways you can pair up the 16 teams left in the Champions League to start off with without any restrictions on who can play whom. There are around 2 million ways to do this, but then we have these restrictions that start coming into play. The 16 teams that are left, eight of them won their group stage in the previous round and eight of them were runners up. And the rules say that the group winners have to play group runners up. Now, that takes us down from 2 million all the way to 40,000 or thereabouts. But there are still a couple more restrictions. The two teams who are in the same group in the previous round can't play each other, and this gets us down to around 15,000. But then there's one more condition, which was that teams from the same country can't play each other either. And this is where we get down to about five and a half thousand different possible ways of arranging the 16 teams. Now, that's quite unlikely. It's about the chances of tossing a coin 12 times and getting 12 heads.

[B]

Michael Wallace. And if you want to hear more editions of More or Less, go to our website, BBC.co.uk more or less. And if you have any numerical questions you'd like us to answer for you, you can email us at more or lessbc.co.uk

[A]

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