MI, CSK among top 10 most popular sports teams in the world

NEW DELHI: Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Mumbai Indians have featured among the top 10 most popular sports teams in the world for the month of March 2019. With 34.3 million views on Instagram, Mumbai Indians is at the fifth spot and is slightly ahead of Chennai Super Kings (34.3 million).

In fact, MI and CSK are the only two cricket clubs and only Asian sports clubs featuring in the Top 10 list. The list is dominated by football clubs. FC Barcelona tops the chart with 108 million, followed by Liverpool 93.3 million and Juventus at 65.6 million.

In April, Mumbai Indians ranked first amongst the Asian sports teams with 16.1 million views on its YouTube page. Royal Challengers Bangalore (7.26 million) and CSK (6.73 million) make up for the top three in Asia.

Globally, Mumbai Indians are ranked third on YouTube video content consumption by fans. FC Barcelona with 35.9 million views tops the chart, while Liverpool at 18.1 million is placed second. The Mumbai-based IPL franchise is third with a difference of just two million. RCB is placed at the 10th spot.

The study was done by Deportes and Finanzas, a Spanish sports management company which publishes insights of all sports teams' social media impact analysis globally.

Traditionally, Mumbai Indians has been the most watched club among the IPL teams. The franchise has set the benchmark by garnering highest sponsorship value and has been amongst the preferred partners for many international brands.