The popularity of AB de Villiers throughout the world is reflected in the ESPN World Fame list just issued, in which he is ranked 99; the only South African to make the list.
At No 1, is Cristiano Ronaldo, while nine cricketers feature among the plethora of American football and basketball stars, Chinese swimmers, motor-racing drivers, tennis players and boxers.
ESPN, the sports media and marketing company took 600 top names from around the world and ranked them according to:
1: A search score, meauring how often a name is searched, using Cristiano Ronaldo’s score of 100 as a baseline.
2: Their endorsements (in dollars)
3: Their social media following, based on the most popular of their various platforms.
Virat Kohli comes in at No 11, with a search score of 88, endorsements of $17.4 million and a top social media following of 39.9.
Some of the Indian cricketers preceed De Villiers purely on their social media followers.
De Villiers has a search score of four, endorsements of $4.5 million and a top social media following of 5.6 million.
The other cricketers to make the list are MS Dhoni at 20 (search score 19, endorsements $16m, followers 20.5); 30th ranked Rohit Sharma (20, $20m, 11m); Suresh Raina at 41 (2, n/a, 13.3m); 57nd Yurav Singh (4, n/a, 14.7m); 71st placed Ravi Ashwin (1, n/a , 8m); 80th ranked Harbhajan Singh (1, n/a, 7.9m) and Gauntam Gambhir at 83 (2, n/a, 7.6m)
Photo: Chris Ricco/BackpagePix
