Karim Benzema’s Madrid career-defining run at Real Madrid has finally come to an end as the Frenchman is confirmed to have joined Saudi Arabian club, Al-Ittihad.
The French striker’s 14 year tenure at Los Blancos yielded four La Liga titles, three Copa Del Reys and five Champions League titles among others.
Benzema was a shining star for Real Madrid and his legacy is cemented in their history. He’s the club’s record assist provider and their second highest goalscorer. To top it off, he also won the 2022 Ballon d’Or, having led Real Madrid to a league and Champions League double in the 2021-22 season.
Thanks to his on-field achievements, Benzema also developed a massive social media presence and its effects can be felt when analysing the followers of his new team, Al-Ittihad.
Benzema boosts Al-Ittihad’s social media followers by nearly a million
BonusCodeBets looked at the number of Al-Ittihad’s followers across Instagram, Tik Tok and Twitter to give a quantitative value to the “Benzema” effect, similar to how his former teammate Cristiano Ronaldo boosted the social media profile of Al-Nassr when he moved earlier this year.
We tracked the number of followers from June 5 to June 7. Benzema’s move was officially announced on June 6.
The star’s move massively increased the Saudi Arabian club’s overall follower count with the current figure being at 921,948.
The biggest number increase was on Instagram where Benzema’s move increased Al-Ittihad’s follower count by 618,492, followed by TikTok where the followers increased by 226,900.
Al-Ittihad has two Twitter accounts - one in English and the other in Arabic - and the English account gained about 50,000 new followers, suggesting an increase that comes from all across the world. The overall Twitter follower count for Al-Ittihad has increased by 76,556.
The Benzema effect
Looking at the overall follower count across the platforms, Benzema’s move has resulted in a 12.27 percent boost for Al-Ittihad’s followers.
While the figure is nowhere near Cristiano Ronaldo’s impact, it’s still a sizeable impact that the French star has had when it comes to social media followers.
