It would be interesting to know, if possible, how many foreigners are watching the Saudi Professional League because there is Cristiano Ronaldo. I'd rather watch a Champions League qualification stage with some Swedish or Croatian team rather than a Saudi match just because there is a 40-year-old Ronaldo walking around the pitch. And the first people who don't care about the Saudi league are Saudi Arabian people because the stadiums are usually mainly empty, just for a few matches you can see a lot of people. That is not passion, they just don't care.
I was one of the people who started looking at and ultimately continued to follow the SPL after Cristiano Ronaldo came to Al-Nassr. And for now I might even continue to watch some matches involving one of my favorite teams in the SPL such as Al-ittihad and Al-hilal. Even though Cristiano Ronaldo is no longer playing for one of the SPL clubs. But yeah without Cr7 things would be completely different. And yeah the SPL's popularity probably won't be what it is today. But still the interesting fact is that football remains one of the favorite sports for native people from Saudi Arabia. It's just that the popularity of football there is not as good as in Europe. But now the SPL seems to really be getting attention from the world.
Mmmm great question about how many people is following or seeing for real this league now, if you ask me the short answer is: "more than before", but the long one is, nobody cares.
I mean most of the people only see some highlights and maybe only the game were Cristiano is involved but nothing more than that, maybe in the arabian countries yes it grow a lot but outside of them i dont think so.