English Premier League fan engagement trends in season 2024/25

How does search interest in EPL teams fluctuate throughout the season?

Looking back at the 2024/25 season, we can draw some conclusions on how fan engagement is created in the top flight of English football – the main finding here is that success does not necessarily drive fan engagement. A factor perhaps even more important is the expectation that surrounds the team and how the side lives up this anticipation, or not.

Expectation dicatates when peak engagement arrives.

Looking first at Champions, Liverpool, it is striking that their engagement remained flat for the second half of the season. One would expect this perhaps to crescendo as the title became secured. However, such was their dominance during the campaign, there were very few moments of real jeopardy for them to get over the line.

If we compare this to Arsenal, we can see engagement peaking twice in a 4 month period after Christmas; likely driven by their Champions League run (namely their victory against Real Madrid) and participation in the title race. The prospect of these two things created points of maximum engagement across the season.

Why Brighton and Hove Albion are an example of raised fan expectations.

If we transition this with Brighton and Hove Albion, the most interest in the team was at the start of the season after spending £200 million in the summer. A well established EPL team, at no point to BHA really threaten Champions League qualification, hovering consistently around 6th – 10th. According to our fan engagament data, this performance did not provoke major excitement across the fan base generally – which says a lot about how far the clubs has come and how high expectations now are.

Why interest peaked for struggling EPL clubs in 2024/25, but not others.

We saw big peaks for Aston Villa, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest around January as they put themselves in to serious contention for Champions League places. Whilst in a similar race Manchester City and Liverpool did not experience these peaks – this can largely be attributed to these clubs being well used to this sort of success.

This is when bottom club Southampton also peaked as they fought to try and survive in the league. Into the new year this engagement tailed off as it became clear they would not be able to achieve survival. Ipswich also saw higher engagement in the first half of the season as fans were buoyed by their participation in the Premier League.

Why Everton had little to play for at the end of 2024/25, but enjoyed a huge fan engagement peak.

The biggest spike at the end of the season however, came from a team with seemingly little to play for – Everton. However, with the men’s team leaving long-time home Goodison Park, this became a focal point for the fans and press alike. This narrative may have got more air time due to the most crucial factors already having been decided in the league.

Who got more attention from their Europa League run – Man Utd or Spurs?

Tottenham’s season in terms of fan engagement (and on pitch performance) was a strange one. Their victory in the Europa League seemed to do little to jump start the general inertia surrounding the club throughout the season. Manchester United however, seemed to get more traction in terms of interest leading up to that final and had a narrative that seemed to capture the interest of fans where Spurs perhaps, didn’t to the same extent.

If you would like to get in touch about how we can help you plan and deliver content to increase fan engagement please send an email to stefan@hypersetgroup.com and we’d be glad to see how we can help.