A Taylor Swift Bump Wasn't Enough To Give Travis Kelce A Bigger Instagram Follower Gain In 2023 Than Shohei Ohtani

In what may be one of the upsets of 2023, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — despite getting a significant boost from one of the most famous people on the planet — was not the athlete with the highest Instagram follower gain.

That honor goes to a man who, if he had a dollar for every Instagram follower he has, he'd still be about 693 million short of what you'd need to sign him: Shohei Ohtani.

According to a report from Sportico, even before he started palling around with Swift, Kelce was making some serious Instagram gains. They found that after the Chiefs' Super Bowl victory in February, Kelce gained half a million followers.

However, that was just a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the meteoric Instagram rise he saw once he started dating Taylor Swift. The Chiefs tight end had a little more than 3 million Instagram followers when Taylor Swift showed up to her first Chiefs game and pretended to like football. From that point through the end of the year, Kelce gained around 2.3 million followers.

I'll be honest, I thought he would've seen a bigger boost. Swift has 279 million followers. I thought more of her legions of fans who for some reason think she's their friend would've hit the follow button for her new fella.

Maybe they were going to and then saw how many passes he had dropped this season and thought, "Meh."

Not only did Shohei Ohtani's bank account get bigger, but so did his follower count on Instagram. (Photo by Kiyoshi Mio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Shohei Ohtani's Instagram Run Puts Travis Kelce To Shame

Although not like he'd care about something stupid like Instagram with a cool $700 million coming his way.

Oddly enough, Ohtani's biggest gain came early in the year, just ahead of the World Baseball Classic. From late February through opening day, the Japanese superstar jumped from under 2 million followers to nearly 5.5 million.

In less than two months.

He didn't have to date Taylor Swift to do it either. He just went out on the diamond, did his thing, and watched the followers roll in.

Other athletes who saw big gains in 2023 include LSU hoops star Angel Reese who gained more than 2.5 million followers and tennis player Carlos Alcaraz who gained more than 2.3 million followers.

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