NCAA wrestlers on Instagram

[peanut]

With all this talk of NIL deals, I started wondering which wrestlers offered value in terms of social media presence. To that end, here are the Instagram numbers for a handful of prominent NCAA wrestlers:

• Starocci - 159k
• Carr - 113k
• Bartlett - 101k
• Fix - 89.7k
• Brooks - 35.9k
• Woods - 33.3k
• Lewis - 23.2k
• Ramos - 22.9k
• KOT - 22.7k
• Cassioppi - 22.5k
• Arujau - 22.4k
• Sasso - 21.1k

Edited April 21, 2023 by peanut

[CHROMEBIRD]

Having a large following doesn't mean a lot if a wrestler doesn't post much content or if people don't react, though. To get a fuller picture of a wrestler's Share of Voice (and maybe NIL potential), we should not only look at volume (followers), but also their reach (impressions) and engagement (likes, comments, shares, clickthroughs, etc.), among other analytics. Here's what the list looks like with those Instagram metrics added:

• Starocci - 61 posts ... 159k followers ... 5.98% AER 
• Carr - 120 ... 113k ... 7.60%     
• Bartlett - 178 ... 101k ... 5.80%
• Fix - 160 ... 89.7k ... 5.82%
• Brooks - 43 ... 35.9k ... 0.14%
• Woods - 95 ... 33.3k ... 12.54%
• Lewis - 61 ... 23.2k ... 16.75%
• Ramos - 63 ... 22.9k ... 11.55%
• KOT - 54 ... 22.7k ... 15.46%
• Cass - 49 ... 22.5k ... 22.65%
• Arujau - 86 ... 22.4k ... 14.83%
• Sasso - 131 ... 21.1k ... 15.84%

(AER = Average Engagement Rate, defined as the % of followers who interact with the wrestler's posts. Higher is better, but note that a small percentage of a huge following is often better than a large percentage of a tiny # of followers)

Just eyeballing it, Starocci has a lot of untapped influence and is not maximizing his NIL potential. He should post more to take advantage of what he has going and extend his reach, like Bartlett and Carr might be trying to do. Woods and Cass are undervalued based on volume alone and appear to have a very strong though small following, maybe good local or niche NIL potential. Brooks' IG clout is abysmal... doesn't post much and when he does, it's probably boring and no one cares. Not good material for a promotional NIL deal.

For comparison, here are the basic IG influence metrics for some other popular wrestlers. Check out Gable's numbers. It's a little surprising to see mediocre numbers from Dake and Oliver after they did so much finger wagging about wrestlers needing to put in the work to build their online brand:

• Burroughs - 2099 ... 889k ... 1.81%
• Dake - 907 ... 250k ... 2.01%
• Taylor - 1753 ... 457k ... 1.92%
• JO - 79 ... 67.6k ... 0.97%
• Nolf - 408 ... 104k ... 5.41%
• Snyder - 672 ... 311k ... 1.00%
• Spencer - 114 ... 180k ... 12.87%
• Steveson - 94 ... 656k ... 16.34%

Edited April 21, 2023 by CHROMEBIRD