Earlier today ESPN released their latest ranking of the 100 most famous active athletes in the world. Given the global limitations of some American sports – and the global popularity of others – fans might be surprised by the inclusion of so many stars of “secondary” sports like soccer, tennis and golf. Ben Alamar, ESPN’s director of analytics, devised the formula for calculating each star’s level of fame. Among the criteria are endorsement dollars, social media followers and internet search popularity.
Bulls foil and Dwyane Wade’s former teammate LeBron James is the highest-ranked American athlete, coming in at number two. Sandwiching LeBron are soccer phenoms Cristiano Ronaldo (1) and Lionel Messi (3). Tennis great Roger Federer and golf’s Phil Mickelson round out the top five.
With the NBA’s global reach being largest among American sports, many of its biggest stars make the list. Behind LeBron and cracking the top twenty are his upcoming Finals foes Kevin Durant (8) and Stephen Curry (11). Wade comes in at 24, fourth among NBA players. He jumped nine spots from last year’s rankings. Between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, Dwyane has 26.4 million followers. (That sounds like a huge number until you compare it to Ronaldo’s 261.5 million followers.)
James Harden (28) and former Bulls star Derrick Rose (33) are the next two NBA players on the list. Despite his recent stretch of damning injuries, Rose remains extremely popular overseas. He checks in ahead of rising stars Kyrie Irving (34) and Russell Westbrook (35). But last year’s rankings show the bigger picture. Rose fell three spots from 30, while Westbrook climbed 13 spots and Irving went from being unranked in the top 100 to 34th.
Bulls star Jimmy Butler, whose global brand and popularity is rising steadily, did not crack the top 100 this year.
To see ESPN’s full list of the world’s 100 most famous athletes, click here.
