• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Era, who, in your opinion, is the most famous sportsperson in the world?

Bladelaw

Bladelaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,699
shira said:
An online shoe store prolly not the best source for research

Wow Google's Global trend athlete of 2020 was . . . Ryan Newman
trends.google.com

Google's Year in Search

Explore the searches that shaped 2020, from Google Trends. #yearinsearch
trends.google.com trends.google.com

Prolly no good way to do this since a lot of athletes have nicknames or can go by just Jordan, there is of course the country Jordan, and Jordan of has his own brand of shoes. If you combine Jordan and Jordan shoe searches - minus Jordan country he probably destroys everyone.

I've never typed in an athletes full name like "Michael Jordan" or "Christiano Ronaldo"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The dude was in a nasty crash so it kinda makes sense especially given how big NASCAR is in the US people constantly googling his status.

As for "most famous" you'd need to define criteria to gauge other names against. Ronaldo is probably a safe bet if we're talking "number of people who know who they are and what they do right this second". If we're talking overall impact Jordan and Ali are definitely in the conversation.
 
NekoFever

NekoFever

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,009
It's Muhammad Ali.

If we're limiting it to living people, Ronaldo, Messi, Bolt, Beckham and Jordan are good shouts.
 

Lord Couture

Member
Nov 13, 2017
81
People have mentioned the Google trends data, but just for fun here are the stats on the number of Wikipedia page views over the last 6 years for some name mentioned in this thread.

CR7: 225.5 M for all languages (81.6 M for the english page)
Messi: 173.5 M (61.2 M)
Jordan: 100.5 M (59.9 M)
Lebron: 87.5 M (55.9 M)
Ali: 79.2 M (46.0 M)
Maradona: 61.2 M (20.1 M)
Schumacher: 52.8 M (17.7 M)
Pelé: 51.2 M (16.8 M)
Bolt: 48.7 M (21.6 M)
Beckham: 47.4 M (22.4M)
Serena: 45.8 M (28.7 M)
Tendulkar: 22.6 M (18.9 M)
Yao Ming: 14.7 M (9.0 M)

Obviously, the methodology has some problem in that the reach of Wikipedia is not the same in all countries/languages, so results are more biased towards the West. For instance, the hindi page of Tendulkar only has 1.5 M views (about 12 times less than the english page). Same for Yao Ming with only 1.2 M views for his mandarin page.

For the sake of comparison, people have mentioned The Rock. He has 115.5 M page views in all languages and 66.2 M for the english one. Arnold has 88.4 M views and 42.4 of these are in english.
 

Rito

Member
Sep 5, 2019
96
The thing about this is that people don't realise how big Football is in the world sometimes.

Sure, Jordan has the shoe thing. But if you go to any country in Africa/Asia, any small comunity, there will be some kid with a Football jersey on. And it will probably be a Messi, Ronaldo or some brazilian player (Ronaldos or Neymar) jersey. You can't see that happening with the Bulls jersey, for example. It's how big the sport is and that makes the bigger stars of that sport he most famous players in the world.

The argument for Cricket players is pretty good since India has a lot of people, but kinda misses the fact that if a Cricket players goes to Africa/Central America, nobody knows who he is. If a guy like Pele,Maradona,Ronaldo, Messi or Neymar decides to go to one of those places, everyone would recognize him, because they care about that sport and they're the best of the best.
 
Irishmantis

Irishmantis

Member
Jan 5, 2019
1,801
The only thing with the social media factor you're not counting a lot of older folks who use Social media which could be a huge number that's not counted for
 
Tavernade

Tavernade

Tavernade
Moderator
Sep 18, 2018
8,617
jem said:
Ah hah!




Based on this conclusive study of one person I'm gunna say that Bolt is the most famous sports person! :D

More seriously this is what I was talking about before - everyone knows who Bolt is even if you don't follow sports at all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Once he stars in a well known crossover with a Warner Brothers IP I'll agree with you! Comic books ads don't count (I'm sure there's some sort of ad with him and Flash).
 
Squid Bunny

Squid Bunny

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 11, 2018
5,340
Mukrab said:
Lebron is definitelly not top 5. Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Mbappe are 4 in football alone that are for sure more famous. And there is probably more. I just picked the ones that are 100% for sure at least twice as famous. I dont know how much you guys think that europe and probably south america cares about NBA but its virtually zero. Maybe you think its not that popular but certainly every third person knows lebron. No. Not even close.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
LeBron is absolutely huge in South America lol.
 
IcyBlueStrawberry

IcyBlueStrawberry

Member
Oct 25, 2017
233
jem said:
Thinking about it I think Usain Bolt is a good shout.

He might not be the first person to spring to mind when you think "famous sportsperson" but the olympics is the only sporting event which is followed literally everywhere and the fastest man in the world is a title which anyone is going to recognise.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This was my thinking as well.

He's not the most discussed or popular, but he's almost certainly the most widely known. I know tons of people who've never heard of Ronaldo or Messi (like my mother), but even they know that Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world.
 

Tanerian

Member
Feb 24, 2018
1,380
Dangerblade said:
You genuinely think about 75% of the US couldn't name Beckham or Pele or Maradona or Messi or Ronaldo?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yes absolutely.
I only know Beckham cause of the dumb movie and Renaldo cause of the bust meme. Never heard of the other three until literally this thread. Anecdotal sure, but I can guarantee I'm the average American in that regard.

The answer is Jordan. He transcended sports fame and went world wide with branding etc. People worldwide have his logo on their clothes and shoes.

Even Ali can't compete imo.
 

ThreePi

Member
Dec 7, 2017
4,763
I would imagine if you ask your average European or South American who Michael Jordan is they'll have no problem answering, but if you ask your average American who Cristiano Ronaldo is they'll probably say he designs luxury handbags or something.

Tanerian said:
Yes absolutely.
I only know Beckham cause of the dumb movie and Renaldo cause of the bust meme. Never heard of the other three until literally this thread. Anecdotal sure, but I can guarantee I'm the average American in that regard.

The answer is Jordan. He transcended sports fame and went world wide with branding etc. People worldwide have his logo on their clothes and shoes.

Even Ali can't compete imo.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure The Simpsons have mentioned Pele in a gag before, so that's probably the biggest point of reference to him for most Americans.

edit - For reference, though Pele sounds suspiciously like Apu here:

 
Last edited:
Mukrab

Mukrab

Member
Apr 19, 2020
7,486
Squid Bunny said:
LeBron is absolutely huge in South America lol.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I said probably south america. I still doubt he is HUGE, let alone compared to football players. Not a perfect metric but if we look at google trends, the interest in lebron in south america seems to be on par with europe, except for venezuela where its significantly more. So you may be right but im gonna ask you for the receipts.
 
Squid Bunny

Squid Bunny

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 11, 2018
5,340
Mukrab said:
I said probably south america. I still doubt he is HUGE, let alone compared to football players. Not a perfect metric but if we look at google trends, the interest in lebron in south america seems to be on par with europe, except for venezuela where its significantly more. So you may be right but im gonna ask you for the receipts.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
He's no soccer player, of course, but even people that don't like sports are well aware of who he is and what he does.
 
shintoki

shintoki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,078
Right now, its Ronaldo by a mile.

If we go historically, Jordan is in that sweet spot of being a major icon while not being too old of an icon. Its going to be hard for anyone to get on his level as he was the face of the NBA when it got introduced WW, but also has a billion dollar empire in his name that is only growing.
 
ty_hot

ty_hot

Banned
Dec 14, 2017
7,176
Manu said:
lol no
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Americans are so out of touch that they think owning a brand that sells shoes that go for over a hundred dollars (here at least) will suddenly make you famous all around the world lol. What is the % of the people in the world that can even afford that ( ot saying they are buying it just that they can casually come across the brand when out shopping).
jem said:
Thinking about it I think Usain Bolt is a good shout.

He might not be the first person to spring to mind when you think "famous sportsperson" but the olympics is the only sporting event which is followed literally everywhere and the fastest man in the world is a title which anyone is going to recognise.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Football World Cup has more viewers than the Olympics. It's the biggest sports event in the world.
 
aznpxdd

aznpxdd

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,670
Rito said:
The thing about this is that people don't realise how big Football is in the world sometimes.

Sure, Jordan has the shoe thing. But if you go to any country in Africa/Asia, any small comunity, there will be some kid with a Football jersey on. And it will probably be a Messi, Ronaldo or some brazilian player (Ronaldos or Neymar) jersey. You can't see that happening with the Bulls jersey, for example. It's how big the sport is and that makes the bigger stars of that sport he most famous players in the world.

The argument for Cricket players is pretty good since India has a lot of people, but kinda misses the fact that if a Cricket players goes to Africa/Central America, nobody knows who he is. If a guy like Pele,Maradona,Ronaldo, Messi or Neymar decides to go to one of those places, everyone would recognize him, because they care about that sport and they're the best of the best.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't think you even realize how huge Jordan is in Asia lol.
 

Rito

Member
Sep 5, 2019
96
aznpxdd said:
I don't think you even realize how huge Jordan is in Asia lol.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not saying he's not huge in Asia. He is, but Football, Messi and Ronaldo are bigger than him in terms of popularity there. Football is way more watched/played in countries there, so people tend to recognize the most popular players of that sport easily. Having a shoe brand is irrelevant to that. You really think that everyone in the world has ever buyed or even seen an Air Jordan, for example?

Actually, thinking about the Air Jordan: I've never seen or buyed one. I live in South America, and searching for the prices here, is waaaay too expensive. Besides rich people, who the fuck would buy a shoe that costs almost the minimum wage here?
 
Last edited:

teh_J0kerer

Member
Jan 3, 2018
218
I assume the answer is a soccer player. Knowing nothing about soccer, I've never heard of Messi. I've heard of Beckham and know he's a soccer player to some extent but partially just associate him with underwear ads and the fact that he married a spice girl. I'd recognize Ronaldo. I know the name Pele very well and it was my first thought, but I don't think I could pick him out of a lineup. So there you go, maybe it's Ronaldo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.