Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, other MMA stars could lose millions of “fake” followers on Twitter
With Elon Musk’s crackdown on fake/spam accounts since his acquisition of Twitter in October (AP News), how might some of the biggest stars in the UFC be affected?
To figure this out, the guys at Gambling.com ran each team through SparkToro’s fake follower audit, creating a ranking of the worst hit accounts.
- Highest Number of Fake Followers: Conor McGregor with an estimated 4.1 million fake followers
- Highest Percentage of Fake Followers: Cody Garbrandt with an estimated 48.8% of his followers being fake
Which UFC Stars Have the Most Fake Followers?
- In ongoing news, Elon Musk is setting his sights on clearing fake/spam accounts off Twitter, but how could this effect some of the biggest stars in the UFC?
- By running a fake follower audit, Gambling.com reveals who has the highest number of fake followers in the UFC and is likely to lose out the most.
- Conor McGregor is at risk of losing the most followers, with an estimated 4.1 million of his followers being fake.
In April, Elon Musk stated he would “die trying” in the fight to eradicate Twitter from spam accounts. With Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter, there has been continuing news surrounding the plans, but how could this effect some of the biggest stars in the UFC’s social media profiles?
Using SparkToro’s fake follower audit, the guys at Gambling.com have ranked which UFC stars could be worst hit:
Conor McGregor Set to Take the Biggest Hit on Twitter
Although Cody Garbrandt has the highest percentage of fake followers, it’s the Notorious Conor McGregor who’s set to be the most affected by Musk’s crack down on fake accounts, with 4.1 million of his 9.6 million followers estimated to be fake.
Anderson Silva could also be massively affected by Musk’s plans, with 38% of his 7.5 million followers on Twitter being estimated to be fake.
The table below shows the top 10 most affected UFC Stars in order of the number of followers potentially lost:
|
Rank |
Name |
Number of Followers |
% of Fake Followers |
Number of Fake Followers |
|
1 |
Conor McGregor |
9,600,000 |
42.3% |
4,081,338 |
|
2 |
Anderson Silva |
7,500,000 |
38.0% |
2,849,671 |
|
3 |
Jon Jones |
2,700,000 |
40.3% |
1,092,496 |
|
4 |
Georges St-Pierre |
2,100,000 |
41.5% |
871,548 |
|
5 |
Nate Diaz |
2,100,000 |
38.3% |
820,040 |
|
6 |
Khabib Nurmagomedov |
2,100,000 |
36.6% |
756,021 |
|
7 |
Daniel Cormier |
1,400,000 |
37.0% |
517,512 |
|
8 |
Israel Adesanya |
1,400,000 |
34.4% |
489,443 |
|
9 |
Dustin Poirier |
985,000 |
36.8% |
362,448 |
|
10 |
Cody Garbrandt |
361,000 |
48.8% |
176,366 |
Whilst it makes sense that those with a higher following are likely to lose more followers from Musk’s plans, where does each UFC star rank in order of their percentage of fake followers?
Coming in top is Cody Garbrandt – whilst he is 10th in line for number of fake accounts (176,366), he sits top of the scoreboard in terms of percentages with a grand total of 48.8% of his followers being fake.
TJ Dillashaw who doesn’t feature in the top 10 with most fake followers is actually 2nd overall when it comes to percentage, with 48.1% of his 369,000 followers estimated to be fake.
The table below shows the top 5 UFC Stars in order of the percentage of fake followers:
|
Rank |
Name |
Number of Followers |
% of Fake Followers |
Number of Fake Followers |
|
1 |
Cody Garbrandt |
361,000 |
48.8% |
176,366 |
|
2 |
TJ Dillashaw |
369,000 |
48.1% |
177,564 |
|
3 |
Conor McGregor |
9,600,000 |
42.3% |
4,081,338 |
|
4 |
Georges St-Pierre |
2,100,000 |
41.5% |
871,548 |
|
5 |
Justin Gaethje |
600,000 |
40.9% |
245,453 |
[END]
Methodology
To collect the data, Gambling.com ran the twitter accounts of some of the most popular UFC Stars on Twitter through SparkToro’s fake follower audit tool. This took a sample of 2,000 random follower and ran diagnostics found to strongly correlate with these types of fake followers (bots, spam accounts, inactive users, propaganda, or other non-engaged/non-real users).
Data accurate as of 15th November 2022.
About Gambling.com
Gambling.com is the flagship brand for Nasdaq listed Gambling.com Group (GAMB); a multi-award winning provider of digital marketing services for the global, regulated online gambling industry. The Group publishes informational portals that offer comparisons and reviews of regulated online gambling websites around the world. Gambling.com Group is a media company and does not offer actual gambling services but helps online sportsbooks and casino operators acquire players. The group was US founded by Charles Gillespie (CEO) and Kevin McCrystle (COO) in 2006 and has offices in Charlotte, NC; Tampa, FL; Dublin, Ireland; and Malta.
