Last Friday, social media was taken aback by the return of Cristiano Ronaldo to Manchester United. The return of the Portuguese footballer to the team he played until 2009 became the most talked about topic on Twitter.
“Manchester United is delighted to confirm that the club has reached agreement with Juventus for the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo, subject to agreement of personal terms, visa and medical,” announced United.
Within 10 minutes, the tweet received more than 330.00 RTs and hit 1 million likes in just 1 hour, breaking the record for the highest likes ever received by any sports franchise. No need to Mention that hundreds of thousands of tweets were posted under the hashtag #ronaldo.
The hype around the news soon spread all over the internet. Manchester United’s official website has crashed, with tons of users trying to log in to check the accuracy of the news. And that’s not all. Almost immediately after the announcement, the SkySports website crashed as well.
Fans on Instagram could not stay calm either – the post of the English football club received 9.2 million likes and more than 400,000 comments in 3 hours.
No doubt we’ve had a shocking summer in terms of the transfer window. Earlier last month, we saw Messi swapping his iconic No 10 jersey in Barcelona for the No 30 at PSG, and soon after, the internet broke with the news of Cristiano Ronaldo returning to his old team after 12 years.
When PSG officially announced the signing of Messi in a two-minute video on August 10, the tweet blew up with around 200,000 RTs and almost 900,000 likes. However, while PSG’s post received 869,000 likes in 17 days, Manchester United’s post about Cristiano Ronaldo exceeded this figure in just 45 minutes and reached 900,000 likes.
In addition, within two hours of the announcement, Manchester United gained over 1 million additional followers on Instagram.
Let’s not forget how the stock market value of the club rocketed after the transfer. On the morning of the announcement, Manchester United’s share prices opened at £12.62 but soon rose as much as £13.87, bringing the club’s overall market cap to £212m.
Moreover, the real commercial value that Cristiano Ronaldo will bring is yet to come. Overjoyed by his homecoming, Manchester United supporters across the world are already looking forward to buy the new team jersey – and his massive social media presence is sure to build the hype.
In case you’re wondering how much this cost Manchester United, the transfer fee agreed upon for the Portuguese footballer was  £15m plus a further £8m in add-ons. Cristiano Ronaldo will earn £480,000 a week with his sensational return to Manchester United – which makes him the highest paid player in the Premier League.
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