David Bridges
Key Highlights
- NFL Popularity: The NFL is the most discussed sport on X, generating millions of posts and billions of impressions.
- Audience Engagement: NFL fans on X show high engagement levels and actively seek content related to the league.
- Advertiser Opportunities: The app offers new advertising opportunities through NFL-related events and partnerships.
- Community Connection: Despite cultural shifts, X remains a significant platform for sports discussions and live events.
With the 2025-26 NFL season kicking off in a few weeks, X has published a new guide to NFL engagement in the app, which could help brands tap into related discussion, and align their campaigns with key NFL moments.
The 13-page guide includes a range of data notes and ad pointers to help in your approach. You can download the full guide for yourself here (with email sign-up), but in this post, we’ll take a look at some of the key notes.
First off, X says that the NFL is the most discussed sport in the app, driving millions of posts, and billions of impressions.
Sport, in general, is still the most discussed topic on X, despite Elon’s personal push into politics, while the app also remains a key connector for live events, with many established sports communities remaining embedded to the app through habitual behaviors.
So while, in more general terms, X has arguably lost some of its cultural relevance, it’s still a key connector for sport, and as such, it remains an important consideration for sports-related brands.
Indeed, X says that its sports fan reach is unique, with many of them not active on other social apps:
Though the data here is relative. For example, the chart seems to suggest that only 16% of X’s sports fan audience is also active on Facebook, but Facebook has more than 4x more total users than X, so the reverse of this would probably benefit Facebook more significantly.
But even so, X says that NFL fans are highly engaged in the app, and are actively seeking content.
That leads to more advertiser opportunities:
Via a range of NFL-related events:
X also now has NFL Gameday Portal displays, which make it easier for fans to engage with NFL content, while it also signed a new content partnership with the league back in June.
And clearly, there’s a lot of interest in the NFL, based on these stats, so if that’s your target audience, it could be worth considering these notes for your upcoming promotions.
There’s more data in the full report, including viewership stats for the Super Bowl, second-screen engagement, and more.
You can download X’s 2025-26 NFL season guide (with email sign-up) here.
Ivy Caldwell
