At 38 years old, Cristiano Ronaldo he is very far from the sporting peak that he reached scoring more than 50 goals per season with Real Madrid. He now leads a much quieter and more comfortable life in the desert of Saudi Arabia, but the weight of his brand continues to be the biggest on the planet above the last two FIFA World Cup figures, Lionel Messi and kylian mbappe.
Cristiano Ronaldo, also known as ‘El bicho’ or CR7, generated a total of 123.9 million dollars of income for its sponsoring partners through his social media posts during 2022, which make him the number 1 athlete in the world in terms of social media sponsorship value.
The data was revealed by KOREa company specializing in value and expense trend analysis within sponsorships and marketing, which reveals its report ‘State of the Sports Industry’ on an annual basis.
To arrive at the exact numbers, KORE quantifies the value of social media endorsements across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Weibo, and VK using an adjusted advertising value (AAV) metric. whose parameters are the commitment, positioning, clarity and promotional quality of the images and texts within the athletes’ publications (it also analyzes clubs, leagues and all these items together for each sports discipline).
Within the report, Cristiano Ronaldo surpassed the Argentine Lionel Messi, who ranks second with 93.6 million dollars produced for his sponsors in social networks, and the Brazilian Neymar, installed in third place with a generation of 35.2 million. The top 5 is completed by Indian cricketer Virat Kohli with 29.9 million and fellow French footballer Kylian Mbappé with 20.8 million.
Cristiano Ronaldo, former player of Manchester United, Juventus and Real Madrid, now closing his career at Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, reached a total of 800 million followers on the aforementioned social networks and almost 2,000 million engagements (1,910 million ), while his soccer nemesis, Messi, has 535 million followers and 1.310 million engagements.
Within his portfolio of sponsors, the Portuguese striker owns brands such as Nike (with whom he has a lifetime footwear contract), Tag Heuer, Herbalife, Dazn, Delivery Hero, Clear Shampoo, among others, which have helped CR7 He is already in the exclusive group of six athletes in all of history who have surpassed $1 billion in income, with a private estimate of $1.24 billion through June 2022, according to Forbes.
In the top 10 male athletes who generated the most money for their sponsors on social networks during 2022, seven are footballers, since Karim Benzema, Sergio Ramos and Vinícius Junior are also present. Of other sports, only the aforementioned Virat Kohli and Formula 1 drivers Max Verstappen (producing 14.8 million dollars) and Carlos Sainz (12.8 million) stand out.
This is consistent with other KORE conclusions, since soccer has 54% of the total universe of sports followers in the world with more than 15,000 million, far from its closest rival, which is basketball with 2,500 million (representing a fifth part). Football also appropriated 53% of sports interactions in 2022.
Furthermore, the study revealed that the gap between men and women is abysmal in terms of sponsorship valuesince the female athlete in first place is the Chinese skier Eileen Gu, managing to generate 4.1 million dollars for her sponsors, which represents one thirtieth of what Cristiano Ronaldo, the leader of the men’s sector, achieved.
The women’s top 10 is more plural as it has 10 different sports disciplines, among which tennis, gymnastics, cycling and even skateboarding stand out. Soccer is only present in second place on the list with the Swiss Alisha Lehmann, who raised 3.9 million dollars thanks to her 17.1 million followers and 105.8 million interactions from her.
Third place is occupied by the multi-champion of tennis Grand Slams, Serena Williams, who retired in October 2022 but managed to generate $3.3 million for her sponsors, including Nike, JP Morgan and Delta Airlines. Additionally, Serena is the female athlete with the most social media followers with 35.7 million, almost four times more than skier Eileen Gu.
Regarding the brands that received the highest income from this type of impact on social networks, Nike was number 1 in the study, receiving 869 million dollars, followed by Adidas with 513 million. The latter received a big boost from Lionel Messi and the Argentina team, which was World Cup winners in Qatar in December, as four posts by the PSG striker made it into the top 7 most viewed posts of all time on Instagram.
Athletes with the highest value of sponsorship in social networks
Top 5 men:
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal/Soccer) – $123.9 million produced
2. Lionel Messi (Argentina/Soccer) – 93.6
3. Neymar (Brazil/Soccer) – 35.2
4. Virat Kohli (India/Cricket) – 29.9
5. Kylian Mbappé (France/Soccer) – 20.8
Top 5 female:
1. Eileen Gu (China/Skiing) – $4.1 million produced
2. Alisha Lehmann (Switzerland/Soccer) – 3.9
3. Serena Williams (EU/Tennis) – 3.3
4. Olivia Dunne (US/Gymnastics) – 2.9
5. Hailie Deegan (EU/Motorsport) – 2.2
Source: KORE
