The ranking is an annual assessment, now in its fourth year. In total, 120 institutional Twitter accounts, 105 Facebook pages, 93 Instagram accounts, 76 YouTube channels, 61 LinkedIn profiles, 41 Periscope accounts and 27 TikTok accounts, as well as 32 personal Twitter accounts of the heads of International Federations (IFs), were included in the 2020 ranking.

While this edition of the ranking provided many insights and interesting results, I would say that two results really stood out.

Firstly, that it was not football's FIFA who took the lead, but instead it was the International Cricket Council (ICC) that was - by far - the leading international sports organisation on social media. The ICC was the strongest IF on social media with a total of 59,048,874 followers across all platforms, which is significantly more than second-placed FIFA who had 37,758,132 followers and the third-placed International Basketball Federation with a total of 12,233,101.

Although this may seem surprising, cricket is the dominant sport in India - with its population of 1.3 billion people and with a very strong social media culture. In addition, we can add another 0.5 billion people from across the Commonwealth countries who are also fanatic about the sport. So, while a big congratulations is due to the ICC, for the other IFs, especially the Olympic ones, maybe this is a wake-up call. It’s time to realise that the potential for future growth lies outside the traditional markets of Europe and North America.

Secondly - and this is not only surprising, but actually stunning and should make traditional, especially Olympic, IFs really pay attention - is that in the top 10 ranking overall there are two smaller, non-Olympic IFs that we see very little of in the mainstream media.

The International Federation of Teqball came in seventh position, with 3,793,708 followers, and the International Cheer Union in eighth, with 3,432,398. Teqball and cheerleading! They took the lead over all of the Winter Olympic IFs and most of the Summer Olympic ones as well.

Digital transformation - for some IFs, consider it done 

The dramatic social media success of sports like teqball and cheerleading is a clear sign that these IFs were forced to boost their digital transformation efforts, which resulted in a significant growth of IF social media handles in general.

These relatively young sports, consequently, showed an astonishing development which is well-reflected on social media. They don’t have the same access to more traditional media so they have had to truly focus on increasing the popularity of their sport in new modern ways. In fact, they have already gone through what many traditional IFs are being forced to go through right now: a digital transformation.

It is absolutely stunning to see teqball and cheerleading in the top 10, clearly ahead of many larger, Olympic IFs. These younger sports were in many ways 'born digital' and didn’t really have to adjust their approach to a new media landscape. They are simply living in the digital world and will continue to benefit from this in the years to come. The less value that comes from mainstream media and the less interest from commercial partners in these traditional media, the more these younger sports can benefit. For them, the future is now.

Digital transformation - for other IFs it is time to act

The year 2020 should have been the year of sporting mega-events, with athletes outperforming each other in the world’s great stadiums and raving fans falling into each other’s arms because of it.

But instead, it turned out to be the year of virtual engagement as a global health crisis pushed all interaction between stars, fans and rights-holders into the digital sphere, raising the role of social media from important to central. The pandemic year 2020 has confirmed that social media is not only a platform from which to showcase sport, but also a place where the true relationship with fans can start - and where a community can be cultivated.

Improving engagement, increasingly focusing on community building, and opening up to new channels is the path to success. And most importantly - the days of using social media accounts as news platforms are over. Entertainment is a must! And many of the young and often non-Olympic IFs - such as teqball and cheerleading - have taken this advice to heart which is why they are now in the fast lane.

If more traditional IFs want to keep up, they must act now.  Otherwise, the smaller, younger and non-Olympic IFs might soon become the new ones to beat!

Digital transformation - starting from top?

While the need for a faster digital transformation of IFs is probably widely recognised, it keeps surprising me how social media communication does not seem to be a priority for leaders of these same IFs.

Our study showed that apart from World Athletics President, Sebastian Coe, no international sports leader has more than 100'000 followers on Twitter. Compare that to leaders in any other type of international organisations - from politics to business to non-government organisations.

International sports organisations have for many years let large on-site congresses and conferences play a central role in the way the organisation was run. And at these big gatherings, a popular theme has often been how to reach out and engage with youth.

Well, it would be worth considering moving the focus - and resources - to actually meeting and interacting with this younger generation. Obviously, using social media channels would be a great way to facilitate such interactions. Young people don’t like to travel around the world to spend some days at an IF congress, but that’s not a problem - they are only a click or two away.

I look forward to seeing if IFs take action based on 2020’s ranking and hope to be surprised by the results we see for 2021.