Indian Sports gets a mention in Influential Sportspersons' list; Virat Kohli accomplishes yet another achievement

Virat Kohli has been playing in a sublime form in last 2 years or so. Man of the series of recently concluded T-20 world cup and the Indian Premier League Season-9, he has outshone every contemporary batsman. Now one more achievement has been added in the achievement list of Indian Test Captain. Virat Kohli has been placed at 8^th position in the “ESPN World Fame 100 ranking Sportspersons” - a list that includes the legendary sportspersons from different sports fields.

Two more Indian players have been placed in the list - ODI and T-20 Indian Team Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni at 14^th place and Tennis Sensation Sania Mirza at 41^st place.

The list has been topped by Football Star Cristiano Ronaldo. Formerly, there was a domination of basketball and football players in the list. But this time, two most prolific Indian cricketers in form of Virat and MSD have been successful in getting placed in the list of 100 most influential sportspersons.

Criteria for selection of sportspersons

The list has been prepared on the basis of formula made by Mr. Ben Alamar, ESPN’s director of Sports Analytics. Income earned from salary and advertisements, number of followers searching on search engine Google and popularity on social media was the criteria of selection.

Let’s look upon at the statistics (income earned from salary and advertisements, facebook likes and twitter followers) of top rankers of the list:

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Football):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 355.10 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 180.90 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          11.08 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          4.15 crores

 2. LeBron James (Basketball):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 154.10 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 294.80 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          2.24 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          2.96 crores

 3. Lionel Messi (Football):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 348.40 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 147.40 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          8.43 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          1.35 crores

 4. Neymar (Football):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 80.40 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 113.90 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          5.64 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          2.21 crores

 5. Roger Federer (Tennis):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 60.30 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 388.60 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          1.45 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          0.47 crores

 6. Kevin Durant (Basketball):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 134 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 234.50 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          1.01 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          1.36 crores

 7. Tiger Woods (Golf):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 6.70 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 335 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          .31 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          .57 crores

 8. Virat Kohli (Cricket):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 46.90 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 120.60 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          2.83 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          1.07 crores

 14. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Cricket):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 26.80 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 180.90 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          1.71 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          .53 crores

 41. Sania Mirza (Tennis):

• Income from Salary/ Prizes                –          Rs. 13.40 crores
• Income from advertisements              –          Rs. 33.50 crores
• Facebook likes                                   –          1.08 crores
• Twitter followers                                 –          .36 crores

Some more players that get placed on the list:

9. James Rodriguez (Football)
10. Rafael Nadal (Tennis)
11. Kobe Bryant (Basketball)
12. Gareth Bale (Football)
13. Phil Mickelson (Golf)
14. Usain Bolt (Athletics)
15. Novak Djokovic (Tennis)
16. Wayne Rooney (Football)
17. Maria Sharapova (Tennis)
18. Mesut Ozil (Football)
19. Rory Mcilroy (Golf)

Total no. of players from each field of sports:

In the last few years, standard of Indian sports has gone really high specially in Cricket and tennis. Its high time for the authorities to bring the same infrastructure in other sports as well so that same achievements can be earned by other sportspersons as well. But future of Indian sports is really very bright!