The World’s 50 Most Marketable 2014

The World’s 50 Most Marketable 2014

After extensive external consultation and internal discussion, SportsPro has settled for the fifth time on its annual list of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes in association with Eurosport. There are plenty of new faces and, as ever, a vast array of talking points.

Nobody sensible ever wrote a list and expected others to agree with it. Five editions of the SportsPro 50 Most Marketable Athletes rankings have confirmed that much, if nothing else. It is a quixotic task, however carefully it is approached. There are always those baffled by inclusions and infuriated by omissions. But, hopefully, what begins every year as a blank sheet of paper at least ends up as something worth talking about.

There is a fresh yet familiar look this time around. A remarkable 27 of the athletes listed are new entries but only one of them makes the top ten, which includes seven of those at the head of the rankings last year. Of the 22 who return from 2013 – there is a single re-entry – 14 go down, seven go up and one goes nowhere. There are 13 women, one fewer than last year, and 37 men.

• The scores are in: How our athletes fare on Repucom’s DBI Index
• The world’s most marketed athletes
• The World’s 50 Most Marketable 2013
• Brand – one of your strongest assets but also one of your biggest threats?

On the basis that any brand signing an athlete to an endorsement deal now would have no time to plan activity around it, the Fifa World Cup has not been factored into our thinking. With that out of the picture, and the Rio Games looming into view, the list sees some notable changes. Ten of last year’s 50 were soccer players of one stripe or another; this year, that drops to six.

50 names, 50 stories; perhaps no grounds for consensus. But then debate was always more fun anyway.

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Simona de Silvestro

Martin Fourcade

Caroline Wozniacki

Youxue Mo

Carmelo Anthony

Masahiro Tanaka

Julian Green

Gabriel Medina

Sir Ben Ainslie

Sonny Bill Williams

Daniil Kvyat

Taylor Phinney

Fabiana Claudino

James Harden

Brittney Griner

Kevin Pietersen

Mami Sato

Johnny Manziel

Steven Stamkos

Victoria Azarenka

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Anthony Davis

Katarina Johnson-Thompson

Sebastian Vettel

Stephen Curry

Austin Dillon

Rory McIlroy

Mikaela Shiffrin

Saul Alvarez

Andy Murray

Alan Oliveira

Jordan Spieth

Ronda Rousey

Mike Trout

Marc Marquez

Novak Djokovic

Alex Morgan

Eugenie Bouchard

Adam Scott

Lionel Messi

Sloane Stephens

Blake Griffin

Missy Franklin

Neymar

Usain Bolt

Grigor Dimitrov

Cristiano Ronaldo

Robert Griffin III

Virat Kohli

Lewis Hamilton