Ahead of last week’s National Women’s Soccer League Draft, we at Action Network took a look at which prospects in the 2024 class were the most influential based on their social media followings. After draft weekend, we went back to take a look at who's following had grown the most post-draft.
Prospects on the rise
Unsurprisingly, each prospect saw a rise in followers after the draft. Prior to the draft, Savy King had the most with 22,982. After adding the second most Instagram users to her audience over the weekend, King still holds the top spot with 24,500 members of her community. The 18 year old defender went 2nd overall to Bay FC, one of two expansion teams joining the NWSL this season.
The only person to pick up more total subscribers than King was 1st overall pick Allyson Sentnor, who was selected by the NWSL’s other expansion franchise, the Utah Royals. Sentnor picked up over 1,700 followers to bring her total to 10,700, up from just under 9,000. That represents a nearly 19% jump in followers, the second best rate of all prospects analyzed.
Kate Wiesner, who went 7th overall to the Washington Spirit (one of three first round selections made by the Spirit), saw the most growth of her community in terms of percentage of total followers. Wiesner had 2,557 subscribers prior to the start of the draft. That number climbed to 3,063 after Washington selected the defender in the first round. That is a 19.79% increase.
Eva Gaetino saw the smallest increase over draft weekend, which makes sense given that the Notre Dame product ended up withdrawing her name from the draft. As a result Gaetino added just 37 followers during the weekend. She could see a big increase soon though; rumor has it that the defender is expected to join France’s Paris Saint-Germain FC.
On average, the prospects evaluated had 7,333 prior to the draft and saw that number climb to 8,008 over the weekend. That is an average increase of 9.2%
Here are the full results of our analysis:
| Name | Handle | Followers before draft | Followers after draft | % Change | Draft Result |
| Allyson Sentnor | allysentnor | 8994 | 10700 | 18.97% | 1st overall, Utah Royals |
| Savannah King | savymking | 22982 | 24500 | 6.61% | 2nd overall, Bay FC |
| Reilyn Turner | reilynturner | 16676 | 17100 | 2.54% | 6th overall, Racing Louisville FC |
| Brecken Mozingo | breckeningamozingo | 10642 | 12000 | 12.76% | 4th overall, Utah Royals |
| Leilanni Nesbeth | llleilanni | 4194 | 4799 | 14.43% | 10th overall, Chicago Red Stars |
| Maya Doms | mayad0ms | 3627 | 4281 | 18.03% | 8th overall, Bay FC |
| Eva Gaetino | evagaetino | 3209 | 3246 | 1.15% | Withdrew from draft |
| Makenna Morris | makenna_m0rris | 4133 | 4550 | 10.09% | 13th overall, Washington Spirit |
| Croix Bethune | croixbethune | 6697 | 7618 | 13.75% | 3rd overall, Washington Spirit |
| Sam Meza | samantha1meza | 6958 | 7327 | 5.30% | 17th overall, Seattle Reign FC |
| Kate Wiesner | _wieesner | 2557 | 3063 | 19.79% | 7th overall, Washington Spirit |
| Ally Lemos | allyylemos | 8097 | 8704 | 7.50% | 9th overall, Orlando Pride |
| Cori Dyke | coriana_dyke | 4842 | 5177 | 6.92% | 22nd overall, Orlando Pride |
| Talia Staude | talia_38 | 2457 | 2671 | 8.71% | 24th overall, North Carolina Courage |
| Maycee Bell | mayceebell | 7621 | 8682 | 13.92% | 14th overall, NJ/NY Gotham FC |
| Olivia Wade-Katoa | oliviakatoa | 3345 | 3807 | 13.81% | 23rd overall, Portland Thorns FC |
| Zoe Burns | zoee.burnss | 7633 | 7914 | 3.68% | 29th overall, Utah Royals |
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Methodology
We used the top prospects heading into the draft as identified by ESPN and CBS. Follower counts from Instagram were recorded on January 11th 2024, one day prior to the NWSL Draft, and again on January 16th 2024, following draft weekend.
