During March and April Facebook executed a page Like purge eliminating deactivated and memorialized accounts that are fans of celebrities, brands and athletes pages on the platform. Facebook does this to showcase a more realistic number of page likes, and because the platform automatically filters likes, comments and shares from deactivated and memorialized accounts. MVPindex, the sports social media intelligence platform tracking more than 21,000 athletes and 1,000 teams, wanted to take a look and see which athlete and team accounts had the most deactivated accounts following their pages following the March and April purge.
Cristiano Ronaldo lost the most among all sports entities on social media with over 4.7 million fans purged from his page, but that was barely 5% of his total Facebook likes. Ronaldo’s purged accounts amount to 900K more than the population of LA, 1 million more followers than the top 5 NBA Teams combined, and more than half of the New York Yankees’ Facebook page likes.
Below is a look at what teams and leagues were hit the hardest by the purge.
Top Losses Amongst Teams
Soccer (Combined Leagues)
Real Madrid -1,993,345
FC Barcelona -1,699,896
Manchester United -1,619,311
Galatasaray -1,214,864
Fenerbaçe -1,029,842
NBA
Los Angles Lakers -1,274,397
Miami Heat -570,694
Chicago Bulls -568,226
Boston Celtics -462,636
New York Knicks –197,675
MLB
New York Yankees: -474,239
Boston Red Sox -237,576
Los Angles Dodgers -127,530
San Francisco Giants -118,605
Texas Rangers -98,592
NFL
Dallas Cowboys -485,744
Pittsburgh Steelers -392,673
New England Patriots -251,147
Green Bay Packers -236,552
New Orleans Saints -221,938
NHL
Boston Bruins -73,162
Pittsburgh Penguins -72,374
Chicago Blackhawks -58,858
Detroit Red Wings -53,483
Philadelphia Flyers -50,268
Biggest Losses Among Athletes
Soccer (Combined Leagues)
Cristiano Ronaldo -4,727,071
Lionel Messi -2,721,151
Kaka -1,709,206
Wayne Rooney -828,381
David Villa -797,156
NBA
Kobe Bryant -1,227,243
LeBron James -1,107,894
Dwyane Wade -596,364
Derrick Rose -528,329
Rajon Rondo -338,806
NFL
Reggie Bush -199,221
Chad Johnson -161,260
Troy Polamalu -160,826
Michael Vick -155,162
Drew Brees -117,993
MLB
David Ortiz -62,553
Alex Rodriguez -61,633
Tim Lincecum -29,183
Chase Utley -28,319
Robinson Cano -23,283
NHL
Carey Price -7,541
Pavel Datsyuk -7,000
Dion Phaneuf -3,042
Tomas Tatar -2,392
Mike Richards -1,635