Conor McGregor and Rory McIlroy have both been named on ESPN’s World Fame 100 list.
The index compiles the 100 most famous athletes in the world with the US broadcaster examining 600 of the biggest names in sports, drawn from 68 countries.
ESPN’s Sports Analytics Group ranked each athlete based on a proprietary formula that took into account three fame factors:
SEARCH SCORE – Which measures how often a name is searched, using Cristiano Ronaldo’s score of 100 as a baseline.
ENDORSEMENTS DOLLARS – Using sources ranged from Forbes to ESPN contributors such as Darren Rovell.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS – Since not all athletes are on every platform, ESPN used only the number from their most popular account. So if an athlete had 2 million Instagram followers but his or her other accounts had only 1 million followers, the social media score was 2 million.
Ronaldo, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi ranked first, second and third on the list while McGregor is placed in 18th spot between Chinese swimmer Sun Yang and Real Madrid and Wales winger Gareth Bale.
Elsewhere McIlroy is ranked #15 on the list behind retired boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and fellow golfer Jordan Spieth.
Football and basketball are the two most prominent sports in the top 10 with James, Kevin Durant (#7) and Golden State Warriors teammate Stephen Curry (#9) the three most famous basketball players on the list while Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar (#4) are identified as the three most famous football players and three of the four most famous athlete in the world.
Tennis stars Roger Federer (#5) and Rafael Nadal (#8) and golfers Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson (#10) round out the top 10.
23-time Grand Slam tennis winner Serena Williams (#12) is the only woman inside the top 20.
To view the full list click here.
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