How Tottenham became the biggest Premier League club on TikTok

New York Times

02-03-2025

The Premier League's most-followed club on TikTok may not be who you expect.
Manchester United would be a safe bet to be at the top of the charts, but they only occupy third place on the TikTok table. It's not Liverpool or Manchester City, either. Never mind Chelsea and Arsenal, who do not even break the top four.
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On top of the pile is Tottenham Hotspur, who have 38.5million followers. That's more than eight million ahead of second-placed City — and 30m more than their north London rivals over at the Emirates Stadium.
TikTok, launched in 2016 by Chinese technology company ByteDance, has rapidly grown in popularity this decade, becoming one of the world's biggest social media platforms. It's particularly popular with the Gen Z demographic, people currently aged between 15 and 24, who spend almost 30 hours on the app per month in the UK. That's nearly double the average across all age demographics (14), according to Statista.
Appealing to a younger target audience requires a different social media strategy from what clubs may adopt on other platforms. Spurs identified this early and used it to grow beyond their 'big six' competitors, who have much larger followings on other social platforms.
'They've got such a good eclectic mix of content,' says Chris Reeve, managing director of Reeve Social Media, a social media agency. 'It would be easy for a Premier League club, especially an elite one like Spurs, to do purely polished content, but one of their content strands is something called #WeeklyWithSpurs, which is a round-up of pictures from behind the scenes taken from an iPhone by the players.
'For example, one of their players is in the gym taking a selfie in the mirror. One of their players is on the coach with the man of the match award. There's another walking through the doors of the training ground.
'They're able to strip it right back, as well as doing the polished stuff. I think many big brands are afraid of doing that, but showing authentic, raw content is highly effective on TikTok. It gives people a reason to follow because it differs from what they see on Instagram or Facebook. It means that more Spurs fans across the world will follow their TikTok because they know they get something unique rather than just the same generic content from other channels.'
While Spurs were not the Premier League's first club to post on TikTok, they joined the platform before the initial Covid-19 lockdown supercharged its popularity. When the Premier League paused in March 2020, and people worldwide began working and studying from home, Spurs' social media team catered their content accordingly.
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For example, in check with the government's handwashing guidelines, Spurs released a series of videos of iconic moments and goals counting down from 20 with #washyourhands and #staysafe in the caption. When the players returned to training ahead of the league's resumption, there was a steady flow of behind-the-scenes footage. As people began using the platform to stay updated with current news and policies, the trending hashtags drew users to Spurs' account.
Efficient use of hashtags and concise captions have been an important factor in Spurs' growth, but it is hardly unique within the Premier League. Arguably, Spurs' primary asset on TikTok has been plastered all over their page from the start: Son Heung-min.
'They have the No 1 influencer in Asia, in my opinion, which is, of course, Sonny,' says Reeve. 'Now you would think, 'Oh, well, that's just it — they just plaster Son everywhere, right?' But they mix Sonny strategically with all the other stuff whilst making the most of him, too.
'I think some clubs are almost afraid of doubling down on their most marketable players because they don't want to be all about that, whereas Spurs are like, 'Look, we know that Sonny is our best, most valuable and most marketable player', particularly in the Asian market, where TikTok originated from. It's an absolutely phenomenal influence to be able to have.
'If you look at any mention of Son in the videos, or even in the thumbnails they've used for their short-form videos on TikTok, they always do better than not having Sonny. They've even got a video where it's just Son's two assists (vs Ipswich Town). Not many other clubs would celebrate a player making two assists as a TikTok video, but Spurs know it works phenomenally well for the Asian market. It's very clever.'
Son does not have a public TikTok account, allowing Spurs to cash in as the primary beneficiaries of his fame in Asia. To illustrate his stardom, the 32-year-old has several fan pages with hundreds of thousands of followers, but the most popular, 'sonheungmiin', has 1.4m followers at the time of writing. That's more than several Premier League clubs.
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The platform has experienced a recent rapid surge in South Korea owing to the introduction of TikTok Lite, a streamlined version of the platform launched in January 2024. According to statistics gathered by Mobile Index and reported by South Korean outlet ChosunBiz, TikTok's monthly active users reached a combined total of 9.32m — around 18 per cent of their population — in December 2024, more than Facebook (8.64m) for the first time in the company's history.
There is more to the idea that 'South Korean star equals TikTok views', as TikTok initially struggled to gain a foothold in the country's social media landscape and plenty of successful videos do not involve him. Still, Son represents a near-incomparable level of fame in that region. Spurs continue to make the most of that fame through geo-targeted localised content to cater to different areas' tastes.
Another face frequently pops up on their best-performing videos: Celine Dept, a 25-year-old Belgian social media creator. Dept has 16m followers on TikTok as well as more than 40m subscribers on YouTube and has made videos with Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar. A video where she attempts to create the 'perfect dap' (a variation on a handshake) with various first-team players has 37m views, by far Spurs' most popular video of the past 12 months.
Other Premier League clubs, including Manchester City, have collaborated with her in the past year, indicating her value in bringing new faces and more viewers to their profiles.
'It's extremely smart for football clubs to have a celebrity and/or influencer interview because it's guaranteed engagement,' says Reeve. 'She's young, she's modern, she's in line with their new branding— that's going to be hugely impactful. West Ham have used JaackMaate (Jack Dean) really effectively. He's got millions of followers across all his platforms, so it's a very similar and highly effective tactic.
'These off-the-cuff, on-the-street style interviews work well, especially if they're asking the questions that fans want to hear, which they would be more likely to ask. Instead of asking Sonny how his injury is going, she might be asking what he eats for breakfast. Stuff like that builds a closer connection with the players.'
They're also unafraid to cash in on interactions with celebrity fans. Last month, Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film franchise, visited Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the 2-1 defeat by Leicester City. Spurs' TikTok team filmed his interaction with James Maddison, who showed Grint his Harry Potter-inspired tattoos. Their most viewed video on the platform is Son interacting with film star couple Zendaya and Tom Holland, the latter a lifelong Spurs fan.
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'They've clearly got, what I would call a 'content culture' within the grounds of their football club,' says Reeve. 'Other clubs don't do that. With Spurs, it's very evident that players are told that there are cameras everywhere following them around all the time, and they just need to say yes and get on with it.
'The other video they lucked out on big time, which has had a million views, is when King Charles came to visit. This is something that obviously doesn't come around all the time.
'It's like a once-in-a-lifetime situation, perhaps. So Spurs did incredibly well with that and made the most of it.'
It may not be the trophy fans were after, but increasing global profile and popularity with the Gen Z audience is certainly worth something in the year 2025.
(Top images: Tottenham Hotspur; TikTok)