Mumbai: Who is more popular? Virat Kohli or Rafael Nadal. One may think whatever, but the fact is India’s Test skipper pipped the tennis sensation by two places to be placed eighth and tenth respectively according to a ranking released by a top website taking into account certain parameters.
The rankings are based on combined salaries and endorsements along with followers in social platform put together. No marks for guessing that Cristiano Ronaldo topped the chart of 100 athletes released by the website recently.
Top cager LeBron James and fellow footballer Lionel Messi were at the second and third positions respectively while Brazilian Neymar, Swiss legend Roger Federer, Okhlahoma City star Kevin Durant, celebrated American golfer Tiger Woods and Colombian striker James Rodriguez completed the top 10.
Kohli’s worth is $25 million from wins and endorsements and $39 million dollar followers on Facebook and Twitter, the website says.
The list of 100 that was released, also has two more Indians — India’s limited overs skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (14th) and tennis queen of India Sania Mirza. (41st). Among the countries, US stole the show with 56 of their athletes featuring in the popularity rankings. England had four, while India has three athletes on the list.
Top Ten
1) Cristiano Ronaldo (Por); 2) LeBron James (US); 3) Lionel Messi (Arg); 4) Neymar (Bra); 5) Roger Federer (Sui); 6) Kevin Durant (US); 7) Tiger Woods (US); 8) Virat Kohli (Ind); 9) James Rodriguez (Col); 10) Rafael Nadal (Esp).