Some of the biggest sports stories of 2021 took place on social media. Women’s college basketball players revealed inequities between the men’s and women’s facilities in their respective March Madness bubbles, and the nation’s top-ranked class of 2022 recruit, Travis Hunter, announced his decision to sign with Jackson State University by tweeting, “Time To Make History.” These conversations were driven digitally. While plenty of U.S. athletes promote themselves and their causes on Twitter, the top 20 male and female athletes with the most new followers in 2021 represent the platform’s global reach. The lists feature competitors from 10 different countries who play 10 different sports, with half of the top 10 coming from soccer. Cristiano Ronaldo, whose 95.5 million followers is the fifth-most of any account in the world, led them all with 6.8 million new followers over the past 12 months. Several athletes on the list utilize Twitter’s evolving platform to creatively engage with fans. “Kevin Durant is one of my all-time favorite Twitter users, because he doesn’t mind getting spicy,” said TJ Adeshola, Twitter’s head of U.S. sports partnerships. “He doesn’t mind responding to people in real time. One day Kevin Durant decided he wanted to talk about…
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Ronaldo and Biles Lead Athletes in 2021 Twitter Follower Growth – Sportico.com
