Most Followed Cheerleading Squads on Social Media in 2023
Cheerleading in sports has been extremely common in high schools and colleges for decades, and the influence of professional cheerleading squads on fanbases is growing.
To put things into perspective, the very first cheerleading team originated at Princeton University in 1898. Nowadays, the art of cheerleading is one of the most recognizable forms of entertainment at major sports events.
In the social media era, cheerleaders in sports such as the NFL and NBA have far more responsibility than ever before. Not only do they root for their team on game day, but they also have to be regularly active in front of the cameras, with a heavy marketing focus on social media in particular—amplifying their content to millions of fans worldwide.
Not every team in the NFL and NBA has a cheerleading squad. For example, in the NFL, 25 of the 32 teams have a cheerleading squad—whereas seven others have had one in the past, but they have since been dissolved because of a club strategy change.
With this being said, the research team at Gambling.com decided to work out the Top 10 most followed cheerleading squads across every professional team in the NBA and NFL, which measures their influence online. They analyzed three different data points to measure this: Facebook following, Instagram following, and Twitter following (according to official cheerleading accounts as of May 2023).
Top 10 Most Followed Cheerleading Squads
Our findings discovered the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders came out on top by a landslide. With over 1.8 million combined followers across all social media platforms, they beat the New England Patriots cheerleaders (544,000 followers) and the Houston Texans cheerleaders in third.
The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders had the highest number of followers across all three social media categories, with 1 million followers on Facebook.
The Houston Texans cheerleaders, in the No. 2 spot, had the second-highest Facebook followers (366,000) and Instagram followers (152,000) but fell short in Twitter followers, coming in seventh place in that category.
In the NBA, the Laker Girls, of the LA Lakers, took the No. 1 spot (277,000 followers), and beat the Clutch City Dancers, of the Houston Rockets (246,000 followers).
The Chicago Luvabulls of the Chicago Bulls were third (183,000 followers), the Warriors Dance Team of the Golden State Warriors and the Cavs PowerHouse Dance Team of the Cleveland Cavaliers came in fourth and fifth, respectively.
The NFL dominated our research, so it is not surprising that the Top five most followed NFL cheerleading squads also made the aforementioned top 10 overall list.
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (1.8 million followers) came in at No. 1 by a distance. At No. 2, the New England Patriots Cheerleaders (544,000 followers) beat the Houston Texans Cheerleaders (388,000 followers). The Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders and the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders made up our Top 5 in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Methodology
Three different data points per county were measured in an index. They were:
- Facebook following
- Instagram following
- Twitter following
*TikTok not included due to scale of inactivity
All three index points were then added up for a total value (total combined followers). All active official social media accounts across every cheerleading squad in the NBA and NFL (MLB cheerleading accounts were not included due to the scale of inactivity) were factored into the research. All figures are correct as of May 9, 2023.
