Bugha is the most-followed esports player on social media and it’s not even close

Social media isn’t everything, but finding out who the most-followed is could be a potentially useful metric for attempting to measure how popular a esports player is. And if that metric is accurate, Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf wins by a wide margin as he has over 16 million followers across social media platforms according to Winz.io. 

In a release published today by Winz.io, the top 10 most followed esports players on social media were revealed. By measuring the follows on Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, the company found that former Fortnite world champion Bugha easily topped the list, with almost eight million more followers than second place, League of Legends star Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok.

Here’s the complete list detailing the most-followed esports player on each platform:

As you can see it’s a big mix of players from different games.

After Bugha, Faker, the Korean "unkillable demon king" and esports player of the year 2023 takes the second spot. He's the only League of Legends star in the top ten, and shows that other LoL pros have a long way to come in terms of popularity compared to Faker.

Seth “Scump” Abner comes in third, the ifrst and only CoD player in the top 10. Now retired, Scump is one of the most legendary players in CoD history.

Counter-Strike legends take up the next two spots with Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo de Alcântara Sguario holding the fourth and fifth spots respectively. s1mple is sometimes regarded as the greatest Counter-Strike player of all time... unless you're a Brazilian fan, for who the answer would definitely be FalleN.

The man who can't stop winning, CEO of Apex, Phillip ”ImperialHal” Dosen, comes in sixth. Perhaps the most recognizable Apex Legends player in the world, ImperialHal is a three-time champion and one of the winningest players in all of esports.

Artour "Arteezy" Babaev, Dota 2's once prodigy, is seventh on the list. The former EG midlaner has a huge number of followers on Twitch... perhaps because they didn't get the memo he'd switched to Kick months ago.

Fortnite's David "Aqua" Wang, CS's Olof “Olofmeister” Gustafsson, and two-time TI-winner Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen round out the final spots.

While the information is definitely valuable, it's slightly incomplete. Facebook, while somewhat outdated, especially in the west where it's seen as a boomer social media platform, is absent from the list. For Bugha alone it would add another 242k followers, and significantly boost many of the other talents. Facebook is still a massive platform in South America and Southeast Asia, where fans of some of these players are concentrated.

Similarly, TikTok, a more modern social media platform is missing. And Kick, the rival streaming platform to Twitch and YouTube, where Arteezy is notably active. Overall, these additional platforms wouldn't cause too much shifting in the top 10 of most-followed esports player, but its interesting to consider none the less.

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