4 Indians in ESPN's top 100 most famous athletes list

ESPN has revealed the names of top 100 most famous athletes. Ben Alamar, ESPN’s director of analytics says that they combine endorsements with social media following and internet search popularity to create their World Fame 100 rankings. This time, 4 Indians have found a place in this elite and prestigious list. Without any surprise, all of them are cricketers.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli has is at No.13, dropping five places from last year’s No.8. He is closely followed by the Former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He has dropped one place from last year’s standings and is now placed at No.15. The film based on his life ‘MS Dhoni: The Untold Story’ released in as many as 61 countries. It was embraced by the fans and was one of the highest grossing Bollywood films of 2016.

The other two Indians to have made to the list are all-rounder Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina. Yuvraj is placed at No.90 while Raina holds No.95. It is indeed a proud moment for India, as only Indian cricketers featured in the list. No other cricketer was able to make a place for themselves. Also, only India represented the Asian subcontinent in the list. According to the stats, Virat has over 60 million followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook combined. He earns around $17.4 million from endorsements.

MS Dhoni earns $16 million from endorsements, while he is followed by over 30 million people on the three social media websites combined. Yuvraj Singh is followed by over 20 million people, while he earns $1.3 million from endorsements. For Raina, the number of followers is over 10 million. He makes $339 thousand from endorsements. Raina and Yuvraj are new entrants, while Sania Mirza couldn’t make the cut this time around.

Other superstars

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is the most famous athlete in the world. He makes $32 million from endorsements and has over 250 million followers on social media. American basketball player LeBron James is second in the list. Ronaldo’s nearest competitor, Lionel Messi is the third-placed athlete on the list. The FC Barcelona star makes around $28 million from endorsements every year.