Israel Adesanya Among Most Instagram Influential MMA Fighters

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

The Nigerian-New Zealand professional mixed martial artist, Israel Adesanya, has been ranked among one of the most influential MMA fighters on Instagram, a popular video-sharing platform.

In a study conducted by Middle Easy, Israel Adesanya, fondly called Style Bender, was ranked fourth with about 7 million followers and the potential to earn $23,534 per sponsored post.

The 33-year-old Nigerian fighter recently reclaimed his middleweight title from long-time bitter rival, Alex Pereira, with a knockout at UFC 287 in Miami, Florida.

On top of the list is Conor McGregor, who boasts 46 million followers on the platform and earn over $150,000 per sponsored post, and was followed by Khabib Nurmagomedov with 34.1 million followers and earn almost $114,000 per post on Instagram, while the third on the list is MMA turned WWE wrestler, Ronda Rousey, with over 16 million followers can potentially earn almost $55,000 per post, and the final fighter making it into the top five is American MMA star, Jon Jones, known by his Instagram handle ‘jonnybones’. Famed for becoming the youngest UFC champion in history, he has 6.6 million followers on Instagram and an engagement rate of 1.16%. As a result, he can expect to earn $20,231 per sponsored post.

Middle Easy examined the Instagram profiles of every MMA fighter with a following of over one million, both past and present, to establish which star is the most influential and how much they can earn per sponsored Instagram post.

“The explosion in popularity of MMA across the globe over the past couple of decades has been quite phenomenal.

“These findings highlight how influential these Mixed Martial Artists are on social media, many of whom have followings on par with major film and music personalities.

“It is also great to see that both male and female MMA stars have made it into the top 10 list of the most influential on Instagram,” a spokesperson for Middle Easy commented on the findings.