David Rosenthal

The most perfectly designed American league for a media product.

Very, very fun.

But that said, even now, a couple years later, and even now after the Taylor Swift crossover, the social media gap between players in the NFL and players in the NBA absolutely still persists.

So I believe Travis Kelsey is the active NFL player for now with the

highest number of Instagram followers these days.

He has just under 8 million followers on Instagram.

Patrick Mahomes has 6.5.

Tom Brady has 15.

Obviously, he's retired.

LeBron James has 157 million Instagram followers.

And it's not just LeBron.

Steph Curry has 60.

There are a bunch of NBA players with 20 to 30.

You know, you can debate the value of all this, but, like, it's wild that number one in the NFL is under 8 million.

And one in the NBA is 157 and number two is 60.

That's what I was going to say.

Back when we originally made this episode, I think these numbers and the difference mattered a lot more.

These days, whatever inning we're in in social media, we've shifted away from follower counts and more towards algorithm and more TikTokification of everything.

So yeah, I think pure follower counts is not a great measure.

And I think also you know an unmeasurable thing is just cultural relevance and to me it feels undeniable that the NFL's cultural relevance has grown a lot in the last few years.