Football’s New Age of Fandom: The Impact of Players

The golden ticket to football’s new age of fandom arrived in flamingo pink.

Inter Miami’s shirt, draped over Lionel Messi’s shoulders, was never just a kit. It was a billboard, a poster, a global passport. From Buenos Aires to Barcelona, from suburban England to downtown Seoul, that shade of pink became a statement.

Tickets rocketed. Social media numbers surged. Club shops emptied. But the real story wasn’t Inter Miami. It was Messi.

“You see people walking around cities and towns in the UK and Europe wearing that flamingo pink of Inter Miami with zero affiliation to Miami, having never been there,” says sports brand strategist James Kirkham. “It is the player who has done the job.”

Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Barcelona or Real Madrid. MLS or Saudi Pro League. The old argument lives on, fuelled by memes and metrics rather than pub tables and playgrounds. Yet this isn’t just about two men any more. The sport is shifting under everyone’s feet.

From badges to back names

For decades, the rule sounded unbreakable: you can change almost anything in life, but never your football team. Eric Cantona gave it poetry. Families gave it weight. Geography did the rest.

Now the numbers say something different.

A study called The Rise of the Second Club Fan, published before this summer’s World Cup, found that 80% of global supporters also follow a second team. Not instead of their first love. As well as.

Matthew Kyle, head of insights at Engage and MTM and the report’s author, says fans aren’t walking away from the clubs they grew up with. They’re adding more. Sometimes several more.

In countries without a powerful domestic league, that second-club instinct is even stronger. Distance no longer matters. Time zones barely do. A tap on a screen brings Dortmund, Chelsea or Atletico Madrid into a teenager’s bedroom in seconds.

And the route in is rarely the crest.

“It’s been happening for a while, ever since the sheer impact and influence of gaming, particularly on young fans,” says Kirkham, recalling a wave of support that once followed Zlatan Ibrahimovic around Europe.

Younger fans, he argues, are “less rigid or tribal than they used to be” and carry a “more encyclopaedic knowledge” of the game, built through hours on EA Sports FC, Football Manager, YouTube and trading cards. They follow the name on the back, not the badge on the front.

“Fans play as these players in games,” Kirkham says. “So there is a really thin line between virtual and real life. Following a player and buying them as part of your Ultimate Team and then wearing that player's name on the back of your shirt, be that Atletico Madrid or Chelsea or Dortmund, kind of makes no difference.”

The study backs him up. Players are the most powerful gateway to that “second club” status. When a star moves, a chunk of their following often moves with them.

“For this audience, they are the club,” the report states. “These fans track individuals, not institutions.”

Griezmann’s misfire and the age of self-branding

Go back to the summer of 2018. France were days away from starting a World Cup they would go on to win. Antoine Griezmann had his own show to launch.

‘The Decision’, a half-hour documentary on Spanish TV, promised to reveal his next move. Barcelona were convinced they had him. Most fans were too, especially when Gerard Pique – whose company produced the programme – fired out a popcorn emoji on social media.

At the end, Griezmann stood in front of Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano and announced he was staying put. Two endings had reportedly been filmed to protect the secret. Only one would see the light.

Inspired by LeBron James’ famous 2010 broadcast when the NBA star chose Miami Heat, Griezmann tried to seize control of his narrative. Instead, he and Pique took a wave of criticism.

Kyle believes that same stunt would land very differently today if the lead role belonged to Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappe. Griezmann, he suggests, was a little early.

Now, players don’t just wait for the cameras. They own them. Haaland, Ronaldo, Jude Bellingham, Ella Toone and many others run their own YouTube channels and social feeds, turning training grounds, flights and hotel corridors into content.

“Players are becoming their own distribution levers, with some in particular taking a driving seat in terms of ‘how I project myself onto the world’ and building their own channels and audience,” says Kyle.

The result? Supporters don’t just watch careers. They follow lives.

More than goals: when players become symbols

The modern star is not simply a marketing vehicle. The biggest names now carry cultural weight.

“Players are far more culturally symbolic than they used to be,” says Kirkham. “It is not that players don't do endorsements now, but they know they have to resonate with fans, so fans can really latch on to them and get behind them.”

Marcus Rashford showed the power of that connection during Covid, when his campaigning helped change government policy on free school meals. For many young fans, that mattered as much as his finishing.

“Young fans want to know players stand for something more – that gives them more chance to follow and pursue them, find a deeper connection with them,” Kirkham adds. “They look for stuff that is aligned to them, who they are, their causes and where they're from. I think we will increasingly see that.”

The World Cup in North America only sharpened that trend. It became a global shop window for personalities as much as performances.

Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha, virtually unknown to many before the tournament, turned into a cult figure after his display against Spain. His Instagram following exploded from around 50,000 to nearly 30 million.

Big names cashed in too. Spain and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal saw his numbers surge. So did Bellingham. Even Ronaldo, already the most-followed athlete on Instagram, added another healthy chunk.

But one man towered above the rest.

Haaland, memes and the follower boom

Norway’s Erling Haaland walked away from the World Cup as one of its biggest off-field winners. His football helped, of course. So did Norway’s run to the last eight and the now-famous rowing celebration with their fans.

The real spike came from what happened on screens.

Haaland’s social media presence, spread across Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, blended elite-athlete access with something far more disarming. One day he’s in a cowboy hat. The next he’s helping Norway’s kit man. He comments on posts, replies to fans and leans into the memes.

Clips of his “bromance” with former team-mate Bellingham took off. So did the viral attention around a Russian model who looked strikingly similar to him.

“Haaland was a massive winner from the World Cup,” says Kyle. “He gained more than 51 million followers since 1 July on his social accounts – bear in mind the first six months of this year he only gained 11 million.

“Obviously he had a good World Cup. But a massive part of it was the personality coming across, interacting with fans, memes, his stature and what he looks like, Norway being there for the first time [in the last eight] and the fans' rowing celebration – all that kind of stuff.”

For clubs, that raises an uncomfortable question: what happens when the magnet leaves?

When the hero moves on

Some teams are living that dilemma right now.

Trabzonspor are riding a wave after signing Egypt star Mohamed Salah following his glittering nine-year spell at Liverpool. Tottenham Hotspur enjoyed a decade of Son Heung-min before the South Korea icon left for LAFC last summer.

“Son is a great example,” says Kyle. “He wasn't a global superstar when he arrived but he was a huge player from South Korea, and over the course of his time with them Spurs became the most-supported foreign club there, topping Manchester United.

“Now, when Son left, Spurs didn't immediately lose millions of followers on their socials from Korea. But we did see a small spike on his new club.”

The bond doesn’t snap. It stretches.

For clubs, the challenge is clear: keep those fans interested when their original reason for turning up has gone. That means content, not just kick-off times.

“The easy answer is to say global superstars will do it on their own and these clubs without them will struggle,” Kyle says. “But every club has characters.

“Every player leaves eventually, even if they leave by retiring at your club. So it's about using them as an asset while there and thinking about how all fans are also interested in stuff off the pitch.

“Behind the scenes content always does really well. Even if you're not a fan of that club, you might stop scrolling and watch ‘a day in the life’ of a player because it might be good content.”

The success of Welcome to Wrexham underlines the point. The story isn’t only about a team climbing the leagues. It’s about the people telling it.

From star players to star owners

Which leads to the next evolution: fans following not just players, but owners.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney dragged Wrexham into the global conversation almost overnight. Their presence pulled in viewers who barely knew the offside law.

“Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac would have been a huge draw for people who don't know football,” says Kyle. “On the counter, there will be people in the football community saying ‘this will be interesting because what the hell do they know?’.”

That tension is part of the attraction. Football, after all, already runs like a never-ending drama. New seasons, new storylines, new villains, new heroes.

The shirts still matter. The stadiums still matter. The old loyalties still burn.

But in a world where a teenager in Jakarta can wear Inter Miami pink, cheer for Al-Nassr yellow, watch Wrexham’s latest documentary episode and then fire up EA Sports FC with Haaland up front, one question hangs over the game’s future.

In the age of the individual, who really owns football’s next generation of fans – the clubs, or the stars they chase?