The Athletic | Football engagement report
@TheAthleticFC - 1.3M followers on X
Measured over 196 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on September 1, 2026.
Engagement
A typical post picks up 637 interactions against 1.3M followers, an engagement rate of 0.051%. Measured over 196 original posts, its engagement rate beats 61% of 3,899 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 80K times each, and 0.8% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 6.29% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 9.7 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 30% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 16:00 UTC, and Monday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 196 posts sampled, 73% carry an image or video and 76% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 9.9K interactions, about 16x its own typical post. Recurring topics include #avfc, #nufc, #lfc.
Measured over 196 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on September 1, 2026. Recurring tags: #avfc, #nufc, #lfc.
Compared with accounts its own size
The Athletic | Football's engagement rate beats 61% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (3,899 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 9 of 10)). A percentile is spread evenly by construction, so 50 really is the middle of that group and 90 really is its top tenth.
On engagement per impression rather than per follower it beats 45% of the same group. When those two numbers disagree, the gap is about how far its posts travel rather than how people react to them.
Where this sits in the catalog
At 0.051%, The Athletic | Football sits above the 25th percentile of the 37,701 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the below the median band, which runs 0.012% to 0.081%.
Show the percentile table
| Percentile | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 0.002% |
| 25th percentile | 0.012% |
| 50th percentile | 0.081% |
| 75th percentile | 0.439% |
| 90th percentile | 2.10% |
| 99th percentile | 156.3% |
This ruler is the whole measured catalog, not a size-matched group: it shows where the raw rate falls across every account we can measure, all of which are large. For a like-for-like comparison, read the size-band percentile above instead. See how the bands are built
Posting timing
This account posts most often around 16:00 UTC, and Monday is its busiest day of the week. The bars below are the catalog-wide pattern, with this account's own busiest slot marked. They do not show how this account performs at each hour: we keep one aggregate per account, not one per hour, so that measurement does not exist in our data.
Show engagement by hour posted, utc as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC | -1% | 53K |
| 01:00 UTC | -2% | 53K |
| 02:00 UTC | -3% | 52K |
| 03:00 UTC | -4% | 55K |
| 04:00 UTC | -6% | 44K |
| 05:00 UTC | -4% | 43K |
| 06:00 UTC | -4% | 50K |
| 07:00 UTC | -5% | 54K |
| 08:00 UTC | -4% | 63K |
| 09:00 UTC | -3% | 72K |
| 10:00 UTC | -2% | 75K |
| 11:00 UTC | -3% | 81K |
| 12:00 UTC | -2% | 90K |
| 13:00 UTC | -2% | 98K |
| 14:00 UTC | -3% | 101K |
| 15:00 UTC | -2% | 105K |
| 16:00 UTC | -4% | 102K |
| 17:00 UTC | -3% | 95K |
| 18:00 UTC | -1% | 88K |
| 19:00 UTC | -2% | 83K |
| 20:00 UTC | -1% | 77K |
| 21:00 UTC | -1% | 69K |
| 22:00 UTC | -2% | 60K |
| 23:00 UTC | -2% | 53K |
Show engagement by day of week as a table
| Day | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | +5% | 238K |
| Monday | 0% | 302K |
| Tuesday | -3% | 302K |
| Wednesday | -1% | 257K |
| Thursday | -2% | 250K |
| Friday | -3% | 259K |
| Saturday | +3% | 233K |
Best tweets
- Aug 27, 202616x their median
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has been the subject of a bankruptcy petition filed by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) over an unpaid tax bill. More from @PJBuckingham https://t.co/vihbppB1YA
- Aug 29, 20266.4x their median
Marli Salmon has signed a professional contract with Arsenal upon celebrating his 17th birthday. “A lot of hard work that went into this, a lot of ups and downs, but I’m so proud,” Salmon said upon signing his deal. More from @gunnerblog ⬇️ https://t.co/SHeOOmfPGT
- Aug 24, 20265.1x their median
We’re not ones for hyperbole here at The Athletic, nor do we like to make sweeping conclusions after just one weekend of the 2026-27 season. That said, we can confidently say that Arsenal are going to win the title by about a billion points. Mikel Arteta’s side have been pretty clear favourites to retain their title since well before the opening games. But with the significant caveat that we have only seen 90 minutes, the reasons for their status as favourites were emphasised this weekend — perhaps less by how they played, and more by the inconsistencies of their challengers. Is anyone going to challenge Arsenal in any serious way? Not on the evidence of this weekend. @NickMiller79 tackles the key talking points after the opening weekend of the Premier League season 🔗 https://t.co/lUITk0zJ1W
- Aug 24, 20265.0x their median
A source close to the Atletico Madrid leadership told The Athletic that the only way they saw Julian Alvarez leaving this summer would be if Arsenal made a €150million offer. That has yet to arrive and the source viewed it as unlikely that the Premier League champions would put forward that kind of money for the striker. Despite being fans of Alvarez for some time, Arsenal are not certain how much the player wants to move to England. They were in contact with Atletico and Alvarez’s camp last week over a potential deal. Sources with knowledge of the situation, however, say Alvarez’s desire remains to move to Barcelona. That would need to change for a deal with Arsenal to become realistic. @GuillermoRai_, @MarioCortegana, @AdamCrafton_, @polballus & @gunnerblog look at what the future may hold for Alvarez. 🔗 https://t.co/x9LuXdRSaj
- Aug 27, 20264.8x their median
Arsenal summer signing Ezri Konsa could be set to make his debut against his former club Aston Villa on Monday night, Mikel Arteta says. ✍️ @TansleyEduardo https://t.co/jlfkYBzVpY
- Aug 31, 20264.8x their median
Harry Kane scored 73 goals for club and country last season. But not only is he a heavyweight goalscorer, he is also the creative, physical and emotional heart of a Bayern Munich side that won a domestic double and will again contend to become European champions. In the summer, he led England to the World Cup semi-finals, too. The England captain and Ballon d’Or contender analyses clips with @SebSB to show The Athletic what football looks like through his eyes... This is @HKane, My Game in My Words. 🔗 https://t.co/zVGNY7fnVh
- Aug 25, 20264.6x their median
Liverpool and Manchester City had developed a reputation for getting their summer transfer business done early. But this summer, both clubs are leaving it late. Arsenal, by contrast, have already strengthened their group with Premier League-hardened operators Bruno Guimaraes and Ezri Konsa. From the outside it is clear which approach is working, , @JordanC1107 argues. 🔗 https://t.co/KDv8rxKX4M
- Aug 31, 20264.1x their median
"That's a quality goal from Arsenal. "Up against a stubborn low block, the movement of Calafiori and understanding of Eze and anticipation of Saka carved through Villa with ease. "There has been some debate as to whether Eze is suited to the left wing, but moments like that show that when good footballers are surrounded by like-minded players, they can make anything happen." - @ArtdeRoche Arsenal lead Aston Villa — Bukayo Saka made the most of fine work from his teammates to break the deadlock.
- Aug 27, 20264.0x their median
Real Madrid will play Shakhtar Donetsk away in the Champions League league phase at Stamford Bridge. Jose Mourinho will be returning to familiar surroundings... https://t.co/wHzvz5MsAg
- Aug 25, 20263.8x their median
“He’s selfless, he’s caring, he connects every single corner of the dressing room, every single member of staff,” one departed member of staff tells The Athletic. “He’s a true Manchester United player and captain. He’s guided us through some difficult periods and maintained a high level of professionalism when he’s been under scrutiny.” PFA Player of the Year winner Bruno Fernandes is clearly Man United's top footballer at a time when the club are a better cup side than perennial title winners, writes @AndyMitten, but will he ever realise his dream of a Premier League title? 🔗 https://t.co/phVm0N0MsU
Ranked by total interactions across everything we have tracked for this account, which is a longer history than the 30-day window the rates above use. The multiple compares each post to this account's own median.
Recurring topics
The most frequent hashtags in the sampled posts. They describe what this account writes about; they are not a performance signal, and the catalog-wide breakdown on the hub shows how little hashtag count moves.
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Reading these numbers
A typical post picks up 637 interactions against 1.3M followers, an engagement rate of 0.051%. Measured over 196 original posts, its engagement rate beats 61% of 3,899 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 80K times each, and 0.8% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 6.29% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 9.7 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 30% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 16:00 UTC, and Monday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 196 posts sampled, 73% carry an image or video and 76% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 9.9K interactions, about 16x its own typical post. Recurring topics include #avfc, #nufc, #lfc.
- What is The Athletic | Football's engagement rate on X?
- The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) has an engagement rate of 0.051%, based on the median interactions across 196 original posts from the last 30 days against 1,264,780 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
- Is that a good engagement rate?
- At 0.051%, The Athletic | Football sits above the 25th percentile of the 37,701 accounts in this comparison. Those comparison accounts are all large ones, because our scanning cadence is weighted towards big accounts, so this is a ranking among peers of similar scale rather than a ranking across X.
- Does @TheAthleticFC have real engagement?
- Its engagement rate beats 61% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (3,899 accounts), which puts it in the middle of its size range group. Ranking inside a size band matters because engagement rate falls as accounts grow, so a raw rate would mostly re-measure the follower count. It is a starting point for a look at follower quality, not a verdict on it.
- When does @TheAthleticFC post?
- Most posts go out around 16:00 UTC, and Monday is its busiest day, at roughly 9.73 posts per day across the measured window.