Saudi Pro League Sees Fan Engagement Surge

Data from global sports media business LiveScore demonstrates the impact of this year’s big-name Saudi Pro League transfers.

Following the recent closure of the Saudi Arabian summer transfer window, which saw £784.2m worth of players make the switch to the Middle East, new data from real-time sports update provider, LiveScore, has revealed a upsurge in football fans’ interest in the Saudi Pro League.

Data from LiveScore’s hero app shows a staggering 4,303% growth of fans interacting with the Saudi Pro League over the last 12 months. 

Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Al Nassr FC opened the floodgates for some of football’s biggest names to follow in his footsteps, and the Portuguese star’s impact on his club’s growth is evident with Al Nassr’s Team page visits rocketing from 576 in August 2022, to 942,713 just one year later.

Sitting below Al Nassr in global team page visits is Al Hilal – who signed the likes of Neymar, Rúben Neves and Aleksander Mitrovic this summer – with 669,328 visits in August 2023.

Al-Ettifaq – who are managed by Steven Gerrard and whose squad includes former Liverpool players Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum – received 544,063 page visits in the same period.

With some of Europe’s best players making the move to the Middle East, the Saudi Pro League has now leapfrogged France’s Ligue 1 as the third-highest league in the world when it comes to Fan Engagements (1,181,442 to Ligue 1’s 983,193).

The spike in Saudi interest significantly outweighs that of the MLS, despite Ronaldo’s adversary Lionel Messi joining David Beckham’s Inter Miami in July. The MLS saw 537,410 Competition page views in the month of August 2023, equating to just 30%of that of the Saudi Pro League, with Ronaldo and co drawing far greater attention than Messi when it comes to interest in each respective league.

However, LiveScore’s Player page feature shows that Messi is still eclipsing Ronaldo on an individual player basis with 26,292 views in August 2023, compared to Ronaldo’s 17,648.

Ric Leask, Marketing Director at LiveScore Group, said: “The Saudi Pro League has made headlines due to some landmark transfers and the general growth of the domestic game, so we were expecting to see an increase of LiveScore users engaging with the competition across the board.

“The ripple effect is clear for all to see, and the trends we are witnessing showcase the true shift in fans’ interest in Saudi Pro League football.”