The most marketable athlete is Messi! Ronaldo and LeBron James are right behind him

The research agency Nielsen has released a ranking that measures athletes’ social media power or media value. The most marketable athlete in the world is Lionel Messi, with Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James breathing down his neck.

Thanks to social networks, athletes are nowadays really interesting for big companies that want to publish content through them.

But which athlete is the most valuable in terms of marketing? It’s Lionel Messi, who recently left as a free agent for French side PSG.

The ranking was published by the Nielsen agency and measures the media power of athletes. Second behind Messi is his long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo.

The third athlete is popular basketball player LeBron James. Interesting names can be found at the fourth and eighth positions, as this is dominated by Indian cricketers Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who are unknown to most people in domestic waters.

The first woman in the ranking is the fifth Bianca Andreescu, a twenty-one-year-old Canadian tennis player.

The only MMA representative in the rankings is Khabib Nurmagomedov at the 7th position. Surprisingly, his colleague Conor McGregor is missing here.

Source: Mediaguru