FIFA World Cup: Lionel Messi's Instagram reaches 400M followers, becomes second most followed behind Cristiano Ronaldo

Lionel Messi and Argentina won the World Cup on Sunday, completing his career. TV and online, the game captivated the globe. After winning the World Cup, Messi is now on a roll, shattering record after record set by Ronaldo.

Messi's social media presence achieved two important milestones following the triumph. On Monday, he joined longstanding rival Cristiano Ronaldo with 400 million+ Instagram followers.

Messi acquired five million followers on Sunday and 20 million over the last 30 days, according to Social Blade. In August 2021, when he joined PSG after 18 seasons at Barcelona, he gained 20 million new followers. 

Messi quickly shared a jubilant selfie of himself holding the solid gold World Cup trophy over his head after the game was won by penalty kicks. Messi wrote in Spanish, "WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!."

In the first 20 hours, the post received 48 million likes, putting it on track to surpass the current record of 56 million likes, set by a 2019 post of an egg. Messi has moved up to first place, surpassing Ronaldo and Messi in a Louis Vuitton commercial featuring the two players playing chess from last month. 

The photograph posted by Ronaldo received 42 million likes, while the same image posted by Messi received 32 million likes, enough for sixth place all-time on the site.

The seven-time Ballon d'Or winner and two-time Golden Ball winner at the World Cup came in second on Sportico's list of the world's highest-paid sportsmen this year with $122 million, just behind LeBron James' $127 million. Messi has at least ten other sponsors in addition to Adidas, Budweiser, Mastercard, PepsiCo, and Socios. 

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Messi earns over $50 million a year from endorsement deals thanks in large part to his enormous social media following, which sponsors see as a means to greater exposure for their own brands. Messi has a total of 110 million Facebook likes, in addition to his devoted fan base. There is no Twitter account for him to use.

According to sponsored analytics platform Hookit, which was recently bought by KORE Software, Messi has been responsible for two billion interactions on Instagram this year, 35% of which have occurred since the beginning of November. According to Hookit's calculation, Messi's social media tweets have generated $59 million in "adjusted ad value" for his sponsors.