22 Dec The Most Influential NFL Players On Social Media in 2025
Dating back to 2022, the NFLPA and Zoomph have teamed up to answer a deceptively simple question: which NFL players are making the biggest impact on social media?
The 2025 NFLPA Influencer Hot List, powered by Zoomph, is designed to capture the full picture of player influence – not just who has the most followers, but who truly moves people, shapes conversations, and creates measurable value for brands.
Now in its latest edition, the Hot List once again reveals how dynamic, diverse, and fast-changing the NFL’s creator ecosystem has become.
What the NFLPA Influencer Hot List Measures & Why It Matters
The Hot List is built on a proprietary Social Marketability Index created by the NFLPA and Zoomph. Each player earns a cumulative score that reflects their complete season-long social performance – not just a single viral moment.
This score blends together metrics like post frequency, reach, interaction rate, impressions and more.
What makes the Hot List unique is that it values efficiency and connection, not just raw audience size. A player with a smaller following can often outrank a superstar if their content resonates more deeply or consistently with fans.
For the NFLPA, this matters enormously. The organization has consistently used this data to help align players with the right brand opportunities, negotiate endorsements with trusted third-party valuation, and support player marketing throughout the league.
“The Influencer Hot List allows us to move beyond surface-level metrics and truly understand how players connect with fans,” said Kasidee Karsten, AVP of Marketing at the NFLPA.
“By pairing data-driven insights with creativity and authenticity, we’re able to help players build meaningful brand partnerships, tell their stories more effectively, and unlock opportunities that reflect their real influence further than just their follower count.”
Beyond the ranking itself, Zoomph builds individualized audience profiles for every player on the list using its consumer insights database of 350M+ social accounts. These audiences are anonymized and refreshed throughout the season, giving the NFLPA a powerful tool to understand who a player influences — and how those affinities translate into brand value.
“Our partnership with the NFLPA is built around bringing clarity and credibility to player influence,” said Amir Zonozi, Founder & CEO of Zoomph.
“The Influencer Hot List goes beyond surface-level metrics to show how players actually connect with fans and deliver value for brands. By combining trusted measurement with deep social media intelligence, we’re helping the NFLPA and its players make smarter, more strategic decisions in an increasingly complex creator economy.”
Key Takeaways From the 2025 NFLPA Hot List
The 2025 Influencer Hot List reveals more than a ranking — it highlights how influence is changing across the NFL. From who leads culturally to how teams and young players accelerate impact, clear patterns emerged from the data. Here are the key insights from this year’s list.
Wide receivers continue to lead the league in social influence, and the top of this year’s Hot List makes that immediately clear. Ja’Marr Chase finished as the No. 1 overall player, followed closely by DeVonta Smith at No. 2, with Xavier Worthy also landing inside the top five. Additional receivers such as Keon Coleman, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Rome Odunze all ranked inside the top 30, reinforcing how consistently the position drives engagement.
Their success reflects the way modern fans connect with players who show personality, confidence, and creativity. From tunnel fits to off-day lifestyle content, wide receivers have become some of the league’s most visible and expressive personalities — and the data confirms their ability to turn that visibility into measurable impact.
At the team level, the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers stand out as two of the NFL’s strongest social ecosystems. Philadelphia placed multiple players throughout the upper tier of the list, led by DeVonta Smith and Cooper DeJean near the very top, and supported by contributors like Lane Johnson, Jake Elliott, Nakobe Dean, and Sydney Brown.
San Francisco showed similar depth, with George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Richard Pearsall, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, and Deommodore Lenoir all appearing among the league’s most influential players. In both cases, the pattern is consistent: highly engaged fanbases, strong team storytelling, and players who actively participate in the digital conversation rather than relying solely on highlight-driven moments.
One of the most striking shifts in this year’s rankings is how quickly young players have entered the influencer elite. Players such as Caleb Williams, Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, Jayden Daniels, Rome Odunze, Brock Bowers, Christian Gonzalez, and Terrion Arnold all made significant impacts early in their careers.
These athletes are arriving in the league with built-in audiences from college, a strong understanding of content creation, and fanbases eager to follow their professional journeys from day one. As a result, the timeline for establishing influence has compressed dramatically, creating earlier and more scalable opportunities for brand partnerships.
It’s no longer just quarterbacks and flashy skill positions driving influence across the NFL. Defensive players — particularly defensive backs – show up repeatedly throughout the Top 50, including Cooper DeJean, Sauce Gardner, Terrion Arnold, Tariq Woolen, Xavier McKinney, Jaylon Johnson, and Jeremy Reaves.
Defensive linemen like Maxx Crosby, Nick Bosa, and Aidan Hutchinson continue to generate strong value as well, reinforcing a key takeaway from the data: fans respond to intensity, personality, and authenticity regardless of position. Compelling storytelling and behind-the-scenes access can elevate influence even without the ball in a player’s hands.
Quarterbacks remain a central part of the influencer ecosystem, with Lamar Jackson, Caleb Williams, Josh Allen, C.J. Stroud, Jordan Love, Kirk Cousins, Jayden Daniels, and Bo Nix all ranking prominently on this year’s list.
However, the landscape is evolving. In previous years, quarterbacks often dominated the very top of these rankings. Today, they are part of a much broader mix in which wide receivers, defensive stars, and hybrid creators are generating equal – and in some cases greater – engagement and social value.
Why This Matters for Brands In 2026
For marketers, the NFLPA Influencer Hot List serves as both an annual snapshot and a forward-looking planning tool. It highlights which players naturally drive cultural relevance, where emerging endorsement opportunities may exist below the surface, and which young stars are positioned to anchor long-term partnerships.
Just as importantly, the Hot List helps brands understand how audience alignment and content style influence campaign success — not simply name recognition or follower count. The modern NFL player is no longer just an athlete; they are a creator, a storyteller, and a business partner capable of generating significant value when aligned with the right brand.
Through its collaboration with Zoomph, the NFLPA continues to provide brands and players with a trusted, third-party measurement framework that brings clarity, confidence, and strategic insight to an increasingly complex creator economy.
