Four soccer players do indeed rank among the 2012 Bloomberg/BusinessWeek Power 100 list of the most “powerful” professional athletes in the US: Landon Donovan (#55), David Beckham (#58), Abby Wambach (#79), and Hope Solo (#88). The third-annual ranking supposedly measures individual athlete’s performance on and off the field, with at least half the score being determined by factors such as endorsement deals, name awareness, and overall popularity (based on proprietary analytics by CSE). In other words, it’s a system designed to help geeky marketing execs determine which celebrity athlete they should pursue to promote their business.
Never really fond of such things, I mention it only to highlight the gap between those athletes on this US list and the ones who would likely rank among a more global assessment. Outside the US, Donovan surely wouldn’t even make the Top 100. But Clint Dempsey just might. And Wambach and Solo might have a shot as well, if it were done in a Women’s World Cup year.
As for Beckham, well, he is David Beckham. We all know that he’s not quite the player he used to be, but he still delivers – and not in a sporadic way, like Henry. Plus Beckham has a certain charm, even charisma. Sure, you can attribute a lot of it to his pretty-boy looks, but Cristiano Ronaldo – a far better player, and equally fawned upon - has failed to achieve that universal appeal because of his shimmering prickishness. Yes, everyone loves a bad boy, but not when you are so snotty about it. And Lionel Messi – the best player – is too shy, too short, and too modest to be billboard material. Plus he’s almost considered a global treasure, so even when he does an endorsement – like the ridiculous Herbalife TV commercial he did as part of Barca’s summer tour of America – we see him more as a victim of some greedy agent than a genuine spokesperson for a brand.
Which reminds me, I’ve long thought that Ryan Giggs would be a great signing for some razor manufacturer. Javier Zanetti would be a coup for Viagra or some other vitality-related brand. And Micheal Owen would be a good spokesperson for Life Alert – “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
Thinking Local, Acting Global
Looking at the Power 100 list, I must confess that I had never even heard of 11 of the Top 25. And one of them – American football player Aaron Rodgers – I only know because of one of his endorsement deals, a TV ad (naturally I have no clue what he’s actually trying to sell me) that runs on the Fox Soccer Channel with an annoying frequency (as most of their ads do).
I imagine the only person more surprised than Landon Donovan that he placed higher than Beckham would be his accountant. Apparently this ranking is geared more towards potential than actual endorsement earnings. Interestingly, Abby Wambach sits just behind Derek Jeter, which I found a bit surprising. Maybe that’s because I live in NYC (perhaps Jeter could be the American equivalent of Cristiano Ronaldo?). And I thought Hope Solo would have placed much higher. She was the media darling after the 2006 Women’s World Cup, repairing her image and eclipsing Wambach’s star in much the same way Beckham outshines Messi on Madison Avenue. But then a stint on Dancing with the Stars is enough to kill anyone’s appeal.
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As my friend Cesar Diaz posted out, Lionel Messi is on the cover of Time Magazine everywhere in the world this week except for the US, where readers were deemed to be more interested in shyness. (image source: time)
My friend Cesar Diaz posted this on Facebook. Apparently Lionel Messi appeared on the cover of Time Magazine everywhere in the world but here in the States. It helps explain why you won’t find Messi on the American Top 100. The US media thinks it’s more important to tell folks about the “power of shyness” than the most popular athlete on the planet. Which, of course, is a tad ironic given that Messi is so shy.
