World's most marketable athletes

This post sort of falls in line with my previous post about the world's highest paid athletes (by country), only this time we're looking not at salary but general marketability. According to SportsPro, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt--world record holder in both the 100m (9.58s) and 200m (19.19s) distances--is the most marketable athlete in the world.

World and Olympic 100 and 200 metre champion Usain Bolt has replaced NBA star LeBron James as the most marketable sportsman on the planet...

Athletes have been ranked according to their marketing potential over a three-year period. James drops to second in the list, with Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo ranked third.

The list comprises the 50 athletes deemed by SportsPro to offer value for marketing money if signed today to a long-term global endorsement deal.

This year’s list features 16 new entries but only five women. There are 19 Americans on the list, six Britons and, in all, representatives from 19 countries. 18 sports are represented, including seven racing drivers and seven basketball players. Six soccer players make the list.

The complete Top 10 is listed below, courtesy of Paul Kedrosky.

It's remarkable, though probably not surprising, that so many of the top 10 are from international (Olympic) sports--especially when you consider soccer to be an international sport, which it no doubt is. It's hard to maintain marketing clout when the majority of people in the world are only paying attention to your sport once every four years, but there we see that 2 of the top 10 (Bolt and Phelps) are Olympic athletes. Include British track star Jessica Ennis (#12) and American snowboarder Shaun White (#14), and you've got 4 of the top 15.

That's pretty impressive, and it definitely speaks to the power and reach of the Olympics. We as spectators may not care about the sports in and of themselves, but we definitely care about the dedication, patriotism, and drama that comes along with training for the Olympics, laying it all on the line for just one event.

As a side note, am I the only one surprised by how frequently these Formula 1 guys show up on these lists? I must be massively underestimating the popularity and global reach of those funny little cars... Also note that Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian cricketer who figured prominently in my highest-paid athletes post, also finds his way into the top 10. Once again, take that, A-Rod (not in the top 50, though Joe Mauer and Brian Wilson are).

[SportsPro]
[Bloomberg]