MUMBAI: Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli has jumped up four places from last year, breaching the top 10 category of ESPN’s annual survey known as ‘World Fame 100’ which was released on Wednesday.
Kohli has been ranked 9th this year courtesy having 37.1 million followers on social media and $20 million as earnings from brand endorsements. He is ahead of the likes of tennis champion Rafael Nadal, basketball star Stephen Curry and golf legend Tiger Woods.
Kohli’s predecessor and India’s wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni also saw a massive spike from 20th in 2018 to 13th in 2019 with 20.5 million social media followers and a whopping $28 million endorsement earnings.
Although out of favour in the national side at present, India’s World Cup 2011 winning duo of Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina are ranked 18th and 22nd respectively in the category.
Yuvraj is still a favourite amongst brands as his endorsement earnings are pegged at $31 million. On the other hand, Raina continues to be talked about with 15.3 million social media followers.
Indian tennis star Sania Mirza is the highest ranked female sportsperson in the country and 93rd in the overall list, despite having a long break from the game to give birth to her first child.
Overall, Portuguese football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo rules the roost for the second year in a row with the No.1 spot with a 148 million followers and $38 million earnings from endorsements. After Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi come second and third respectively.
To compile its prestigious ranking, ESPN selects the top 100 athletes from a list of 800 sportspersons from 78 countries of world who are most likely to be searched on the internet via Google Trends (also known as search score), have a strong social media following and the amount they earn from endorsements (based on numbers taken from Forbes). These numbers are compiled by ESPN’s Sports Analytics Group.
