Biggest in the World - The Planet More Popular Teams

Flamengo's President speaking at the
UN's Sport for Development and Peace Office last week.

Everybody wants to know who is the biggest soccer club in the world. There are many ways to measure that, such as the number of titles, the total revenues (I am sure we will talk about this soon), club associates, etc. For me it always made more sense to measure a soccer team size by the passion they inspire in their fans.

A Brazilian magazine focused on curious facts just made an interesting study. They developed a simple but credible methodology to estimate the number of fans of the biggest soccer clubs in the world. First step, listing the percentage of fans for the three big soccer clubs in each one of the eleven most important soccer tournaments in the planet. Second step, multiply the percentage of fans' preference by the correspondent population of each one of the 11 countries in the study.

Of course, by doing that you exclude the "out of country fans", penalizing globalized brands like the Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. These teams are huge in people oriented markets such as China, India, Bangladesh, etc.

I love the food and they love the game!
But do they really play soccer down there?

On the other hand one can say that we are measuring real power since we all know that your soccer passion is determined by your own culture, and therefore most of your love is due to the territory you belong to, or in other words the place you live. It is ok to be in China and say that you are a Liverpool fan, but come on, what does that really mean?

No prejudice on that, India had soccer teams from at least a decade early than the Latin America. Actually the first soccer team outside England was born in India. The true is other than that, there is no much that Asians can argue about in terms of soccer.

Let's take a lok at the compiled list of the most popular soccer teams in the planet.

Flamengo is the number one, with 32.6 million fans, the second and third places are in Mexico, respectively Chivas and America. The third place goes back to Brazil, my own favorite: Sport Club Corinthians Paulista. If you carefully look for the list (available below), you will see that it reflects people's passion for the game.

That said a few of my own thoughts. Flamengo takes advantage of the so called "Radio Era" in the 1950s Brazil, where everybody get the radio news from Rio de Janeiro, the country's capital. That means that Flamengo's fans are all around the country, in places where people usually have two, or three teams, so they support their "hometown" club, plus Flamengo. Falmengo won one Libertadores in 1980 and one World Club Tournament (the Toyota Cup) beating Liverpool 3X0 in 1981. They also have five Brazilian League trophies and several Carioca Cups.

The second place Chivas (30.8 million fans) is a great team, don't take me wrong. As every Brazilian I have a love history with Guadalajara. But besides being popular, what does the Chivas achieve soccer-wise speaking, just few titles in the Mexican League, a franchise in the USA, and of course a lot of space in the media.

I take my hat for the Chivas Guadalajara.
Watch the video and you will know why!

America from Mexico city is the third one with 26.4 million fans. Personally, I have nothing good to say about it, so I will just skip it.

Now we get to Corinthians (23 million fans) and I want to make my point. But for that you have to wait until my next post!

List compiled by the Mundo Estranho Magazine (2008)

BRAZIL
Pesquisa Datafolha. 2007
1. Flamengo – 32.6 millions(17%)
2. Corinthians – 23 millions(12%)
3. São Paulo – 15.3 millions(8%)

ARGENTINA
Equis Investigación Social. 2006
1. Boca Juniors – 16.4 millions(40.4%)
2. River Plate – 13.2 millions(32.6%)
3. Independiente – 2.2 millions(5.5%)

SPAIN
Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. 2007
1. Real Madrid – 13.2 millions(32.7%)
2. Barcelona – 10.4 millions(25.7%)
3. Valencia – 2.1 millions(5.3%)

GERMANY
Sportfive (Agência de Marketing Esportivo). 2007
1. Bayern de Munique – 10.5 millions(12.8%)
2. Werder Bremen – 5.7 millions(6.9%)
3. Schalke 04 – 4.3 millions(5.2%)

ITALY
Instituto Demos-Eurisko. 2007
1. Juventus – 16.3 millions(28%)
2. Milan – 13.4 millions(23%)
3. Internazionale – 9.3 millions(16%)

JAPAN
Video Research Ltd.. 2006
1. Kashima Antlers – 12.3 millions(9.7%)
2. Gamba Osaka – 11.9 millions(9.4%)
3. Jubilo Iwata – 11.7 millions(9.2%)

MEXICO
Grupo Reforma. 2007
1. Chivas – 30.8 millions(28%)
2. América – 26.4 millions(24%)
3. Cruz Azul e Pumas – 13.2 millions(12%)

ENGLAND
Roy Morgan International. 2006
1. Manchester United – 4.2 millions(6.9%)
2. Liverpool – 3.1 millions(5.1%)
3. Arsenal – 2.6 millions(4.35%)

PORTUGAL
Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional. 2003
1. Benfica – 4.1 millions(38.8%)
2. Porto – 2.6 millions(24.4%)
3. Sporting – 2.1 millions(20.2%)

FRANCE
Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (Insee). 2006
1. Olympique – 10.2 millions(16%)
2. Lyon – 9.6 millions(15%)
3. Paris Saint-Germain – 3.2 millions(5%)

NETHERLANDS
TNS-NIPO. 2007
1. Ajax – 4.3 millions(26%)
2. Feyenoord – 3.8 millions(23%)
3. PSV – 2.1 millions(13%)