Alphonso Davies named most influential Canadian sport star in new study

globalnews.ca:

Edmonton soccer darling Alphonso Davies has been crowned the most influential Canadian sport star, based on Instagram statistics, including number of followers and engagement.

Davies plays for Bayern Munich and the Canadian national team.

The study, conducted by online gambling company PlayOJO, ranked the top 10 Canadian sports stars.

Davies, 22, has over 5.4 million Instagram followers, a 3.2 per cent engagement rate and 173,000 average likes per post.

“Phonsie, especially, is a wonderful news story, both in terms of his upbringing — coming in as a refugee — growing, in terms of the Canadian soccer community, and going and playing for Bayern, is awesome,” said Gilles Prefontaine, a marketing instructor at NAIT’s JR Shaw School of Business.

“His success draws in a whole bunch of young athletes that want to share in that and be part of that with him.”

Prefontaine says soccer has a more global reach than some other sports.

“Being Canadian, we often think of hockey, and that’s because it’s part of our culture, it’s part of our DNA. But we also have to remember that many of these athletes are going to draw from international groups. And so many of the sports that have much larger international volumes will naturally have a bigger impact in terms of that number of followers.”

The study estimates Davies also has the highest potential earnings per sponsored post — an estimated $87,176 per post and $113,424 per reel.

With that power, Prefontaine says, comes responsibility.

“When someone with that kind of notoriety can change behaviour and turn around and influence potentially whole generations of individuals to consume something or do something very different, there is a certain amount of accountability,” he said.

Retired MMA