British media ranked market value: James is only eighth! Messi is only 16th! Funny!

October 23rd. The British media SportsPro recently selected the so-called top 50 most marketable athletes in the world in 2025. They cooperated with NorthStar Solutions Group, and the criteria were to combine some data, social media, cultural trends, economic valuations and expert insights. However, no matter how hyped they are, judging from the results, this is a joke made behind closed doors to entertain themselves. The serious disconnect between its evaluation criteria and real-world commercial value is simply laughable. This seems to be a numbers game concocted by "experts" working behind closed doors while completely ignoring the actual performance of the market.

First, take a look at the top ten on this list: Hamilton, Biles, Maher, Curry, Ronaldo, Neymar, Clark, James, Antetokounmpo, Gauff. Nearly half of them may not have been heard by many outsiders. Biles is a gymnast, how much is this worth? Maher, this name has no default input method, is a female rugby player. Clark played in women's basketball where wages were very low. Gauff is a tennis player.

C Ronaldo ranked fifth, Curry directly and illogically ranked fourth, James was only eighth, and Messi did not even make the top ten, ranking 16th, not as good as Lewandowski (11th), Mbappe, Vinicius, and even the 12th female skateboarder Raisa Leal (another input method has no default name).

Let's take a look at how the real business world uses real money to vote for athletes - James, the number one athlete in off-field income, has a lifetime contract with Nike, the most famous sports brand in the world, and Nike also built a center specifically for James at its headquarters. Messi is even more powerful. Although his off-field income lags behind James, he is the first in the football field. And Messi attracts tens of thousands of fans to watch every game on average, causing many stadiums to break team history records. For example, the New England Revolution once used the home stadium of the New England Patriots, a football giant in the same city. Because it was larger, the number of seats in the NFL giant's home stadium in history was suddenly exceeded. On the other hand, Ronaldo, who is ranked fifth, has 1,876 and 3,111 people coming out.

Is there any harder indicator to measure market value than consumers’ pursuit of real money? The evaluation model of this list is said to be based on multi-dimensional data such as brand strength, market coverage and economic value. But when there is such a huge gap between the calculation results and the reality of global consumers voting with their wallets, we have to wonder whether this complex algorithm has become a "paper talk" that is divorced from reality.

The true value of the market has always been defined by the packed stadiums with fans, the huge endorsement fees paid by brands, and the sales of jerseys and peripheral products, rather than numbers calculated by a few experts in models. Under this real business logic, James and Messi are undoubtedly still the undisputed kings of this era.