Cristiano Ronaldo crowned most marketable football player

Sports marketing research firm Repucom has unveiled its list of the ten most marketable soccer players on the planet.

Now that the season is over, a few specialized companies are unveiling their lists of most marketable athletes. There are certain athletes that are a must in this sort of lists and one of them is football star Cristiano Ronaldo. In the recently unveiled Top10 by Repucom, Real Madrid’s 2013 Fifa Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo secured first place, ahead of FC Barcelona pair Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué.

The list was compiled using Repucom’s Celebrity DBI tool, which measures the perceptions of over 6,500 people in 13 international markets to provide an accurate assessment of an athlete’s marketability.The marketability of the players is calculated with reference to eight distinct criteria: awareness, appeal, aspiration, breakthrough, endorsement, influence, trend-setter and trust.

The complete list is as follows:

1.         Cristiano Ronaldo

2.         Lionel Messi

3.         Gerard Piqué

4.         Fernando Torres

5.         Wayne Rooney

6.         Andrés Iniesta

7.         Neymar Jr

8.         Iker Casillas

9.         Zlatan Ibrahimovic

10.       Thierry Henry

Paul Smith, the founder and chief executive of Repucom, said: “With just over two weeks to go before the 2014 Fifa World Cup kicks off, the world’s gaze is firmly on the competing teams and players. The World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world and as such, big brands, official partners or otherwise, will and are using its global appeal to drive sales.

“Endorsements of celebrities and in this case footballers have an incredibly powerful way of doing just that creating an emotional connection with a brand. The star can raise awareness and create a buzz for brands and products at a time when breaking through the marketing clutter that surrounds such huge events is critical for commercial success.

Cristiano Ronaldo was also ranked as football’s most marketable star by SportsPro magazine last week (see complete list here). The former Manchester United player was named number four in the magazine’s annual list of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes, which ranks sportsmen and women from across the world according to their marketing potential over the next three years.

“Ronaldo is an endorser’s dream,” added Smith. “His value is as important to the teams he plays for as they are for the companies that endorse him. Global awareness of Ronaldo is what drives his commercial power and with over 82 million Facebook likes and 26 million Twitter followers, he is also one of the most liked in the business.”