Most Influential NWSL Draftees on Social Media Following 2024 Draft

Ahead of last week’s National Women’s Soccer League Draft, we at Action Network took a look at which prospects in the 2024 class were the most influential based on their social media followings. After draft weekend, we went back to take a look at who’s following had grown the most post-draft.

 

Prospects on the rise

 

Unsurprisingly, each prospect saw a rise in followers after the draft. Prior to the draft, Savy King had the most with 22,982. After adding the second most Instagram users to her audience over the weekend, King still holds the top spot with 24,500 members of her community. The 18 year old defender went 2nd overall to Bay FC, one of two expansion teams joining the NWSL this season.

 

The only person to pick up more total subscribers than King was 1st overall pick Allyson Sentnor, who was selected by the NWSL’s other expansion franchise, the Utah Royals. Sentnor picked up over 1,700 followers to bring her total to 10,700, up from just under 9,000. That represents a nearly 19% jump in followers, the second best rate of all prospects analyzed.

 

Kate Wiesner, who went 7th overall to the Washington Spirit (one of three first round selections made by the Spirit), saw the most growth of her community in terms of percentage of total followers. Wiesner had 2,557 subscribers prior to the start of the draft. That number climbed to 3,063 after Washington selected the defender in the first round. That is a 19.79% increase.

 

Eva Gaetino saw the smallest increase over draft weekend, which makes sense given that the Notre Dame product ended up withdrawing her name from the draft. As a result Gaetino added just 37 followers during the weekend. She could see a big increase soon though; rumor has it that the defender is expected to join France’s Paris Saint-Germain FC.

 

On average, the prospects evaluated had 7,333 prior to the draft and saw that number climb to 8,008 over the weekend. That is an average increase of 9.2%

 

Here are the full results of our analysis:

 

Name Handle Followers before draft Followers after draft % Change Draft Result
Allyson Sentnor allysentnor 8994 10700 18.97% 1st overall, Utah Royals
Savannah King savymking 22982 24500 6.61% 2nd overall, Bay FC
Reilyn Turner reilynturner 16676 17100 2.54% 6th overall, Racing Louisville FC
Brecken Mozingo breckeningamozingo 10642 12000 12.76% 4th overall, Utah Royals
Leilanni Nesbeth llleilanni 4194 4799 14.43% 10th overall, Chicago Red Stars
Maya Doms mayad0ms 3627 4281 18.03% 8th overall, Bay FC
Eva Gaetino evagaetino 3209 3246 1.15% Withdrew from draft
Makenna Morris makenna_m0rris 4133 4550 10.09% 13th overall, Washington Spirit
Croix Bethune croixbethune 6697 7618 13.75% 3rd overall, Washington Spirit
Sam Meza samantha1meza 6958 7327 5.30% 17th overall, Seattle Reign FC
Kate Wiesner _wieesner 2557 3063 19.79% 7th overall, Washington Spirit
Ally Lemos allyylemos 8097 8704 7.50% 9th overall, Orlando Pride
Cori Dyke coriana_dyke 4842 5177 6.92% 22nd overall, Orlando Pride
Talia Staude talia_38 2457 2671 8.71% 24th overall, North Carolina Courage
Maycee Bell mayceebell 7621 8682 13.92% 14th overall, NJ/NY Gotham FC
Olivia Wade-Katoa oliviakatoa 3345 3807 13.81% 23rd overall, Portland Thorns FC
Zoe Burns zoee.burnss 7633 7914 3.68% 29th overall, Utah Royals

 

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Methodology

We used the top prospects heading into the draft as identified by ESPN and CBS. Follower counts from Instagram were recorded on January 11th 2024, one day prior to the NWSL Draft, and again on January 16th 2024, following draft weekend.