Top 50 marketable sports stars of 2014

SportsPro has come out with its latest annual list of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes in association with Eurosport. This is the fifth edition of the list since its inception. After an extensive search around the world of sport, the top 50 were arrived at. The list reveals the marketing potential of an athlete over the next three years starting this summer with the following criteria being considered – Value for money, age, home market, charisma, willingess to be marketed and crossover appeal. 27 of the athletes this time around are new entries, but only one of them is in the top 10.  There are 13 women, one fewer than last year, and 37 men. Here is the list of this year’s top marketable sport stars. The title carries the name of the star along with his/her nationality, age, sport and last year’s rank in brackets.

#1 Lewis Hamilton - British, 29, Motorsport (7)

2014 is turning out to be a good year for Lewis Hamilton as he finds himself on top of yet another list. The current leader in the F1 drivers championship is leading the pack of most marketable athletes, at least until the FIFA World Cup is done with, as that would spawn a new list of heroes.

F1 is set to reach new markets in the next few years: Russia, perhaps Mexico, perhaps even Azerbaijan, in addition to the existing strongholds. Hamiltons switch to Mercedes from McLaren where he had spent his entire racing career previously, is proving to be a substantial move. With only teammate Nico Rosberg providing competition, Hamilton has his best chance of claiming a second drivers title in his career.

The package accompanying Hamilton is also very much media savvy a maturing star, a celebrity girlfriend, a seven-figure social media following and being managed by XIX Entertainment.