It's true, and all fair points on your part. I just think you underestimate how many people all over the globe still rock Jordan brand shoes and clothing. Maybe we're using different definitions to measure "biggest sports star" (as in Ronaldo is bigger because he's more known and he's still playing; while I think Jordan still has a bigger reach than Ronnie because of his off-court ventures). Still, as I said, all fair points on your part and I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here.
Cristiano Ronaldo : The Juventus Chapter | Fin
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It's true, and all fair points on your part. I just think you underestimate how many people all over the globe still rock Jordan brand shoes and clothing. Maybe we're using different definitions to measure "biggest sports star" (as in Ronaldo is bigger because he's more known and he's still playing; while I think Jordan still has a bigger reach than Ronnie because of his off-court ventures). Still, as I said, all fair points on your part and I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here.
I think you're overestimating the Jordan brand outside of the US. In terms of sports shoes sold, I think it's a very niche market in Europe, limited mainly to urban immigrant populations
Surely that's Pelé. Never met someone who hasn't heard of Pelé. For example this girl I was dating knew nothing of any sports but knew Pelé name not Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo the biggest sports star in history 
Ronaldo the biggest sports star in history
He will be.
Also will be the greatest Athlete of all time.
GOAT.
That's like saying the Jonas Brothers or Pitbull are bigger than Michael Jackson or The Beatles because "globalization and pop being a famous genre".
Really tough to call 1 athlete the biggest sports star.
Arguments can be made for lots of different athletes. Jordan, Ali, Pele, etc.
Arguments can be made for lots of different athletes. Jordan, Ali, Pele, etc.
No, it’s like saying Beyoncé is bigger than Jackson, which is a fair statement. That is, biggest star of today vs biggest star of yesterday.
Simple test go to each country of the world, go to the busiest spot in the capital city and take a picture of Ronaldo and Jordan. Much more people will know Ronaldo.
If you did a poll on this very forum and put up a picture of Michael Jordan and a few other basketball players ask people to name him, plenty of people would get it wrong.
The thing is, if regular sports article retailers have margins of 30-36% and operational costs that lower these margins tremendously (although they also do E-Commerce) it is very optimistic to estimate a net margin of 40% of sale. In the article linked below the author mentions that although the gross profit margin of sports articles may be 37%, the net profit margin ranges between 0.8 and 1.5%. And you say that the net margin of Juventus Turin's shirt sales is even below the estimated gross margin for sports retailers in general. That is almost the definition of a very bold claim.
Another way to look at it: If you consider a price of 140€ and 520,000 sold shirts this would translate to a profit of 29 million. Why on earth would any club then sell their merahcndise license to their sponsors for a fraction of these prices? The truth is, they do it because the big sports article producers have the expertise, the economics of scale, the brand and the reach to do the job at a fraction of the price. Juve may profit from this deal but if it would be such a no brainer of a decision to do the merchandise yourself every club would do it. They probably are closer to 10-12 million per year than would you are implying.
But even if your claim of 40% margin would be true, this wouldn't even cover 30% of what Ronaldo allegedly costs Juve annualy. So the idea that the shirt sales alone compensate the costs are still completely naive, regardless of Juventus' special contract.
Come on. 500 million fans equals approximately the complete population of the European Union. It would mean that every 16th person on this planet would be a Ronaldo fan (infants, children, elders, women, people from countries not interested in football etc. included). I wouldn't even be sure if every 16th person in this world is interested in football at all (WCs aside) respectively involved enough to be supporter of a club yet to say an individual player.
Besides that, that Real sold 1 million Ronaldo shirts per year (source, by the way?) doesn't mean that he is the reason for these one million shirts were sold. If he would join my club, I sure as hell would get a shirt with his name on the back but I would've bought one anyway. Of course he positively affects the club's sales volume because he has lots of personal fans. But he also profited from playing for the most popular club in the world. If he would sign for Blackburn, you can be sure as hell they wouldn't sell the same number of Ronaldo shirts as Real did.
Pele played 50 years ago. Lots of people don’t know who Pele is and there were even less people in the world who knew who he was back when he was playing.
Ronaldo the biggest sports star in history
He is... easily. More people care about sports than ever due to globalization, football is the biggest sport and he’s the biggest football star on the planet for over a decade. He’s going to sell more shirts than anyone else and increase Juve’s brand commercially like no one else in history could. He gets more from endorsements than anyone in sports history too.
No, it’s not. Music and sports have not had a similar growth in the past 30 years, at all. And the music will stay and be able to be listened to 30 years later which obviously doesn’t happen in sports. Ronaldo has been the biggest
sports star on the planet for over a decade, he’s not the Jonas Brothers or Pitbull.
My original comment was made in relation to the impact he’ll have on Juve commercially and the shirts he’d sell, not how known or important someone in relation to their own sports.
Anyway, it doesn’t even matter and there’s obviously a misunderstanding in what ‘biggest’ means. It was just a passable comment, not meant to start an off topic discussion.
You guys legit think that people beyond 20 y/o aren't part of this world anymore, right?.
Beyond 20? Everyone alive (10-100) who watches football has seen Ronaldo dominate the past 10+ years. Only those above 55 who grew up with a TV, a minority in this world, can realistically remember Pelé. Are you also bringing corpses into this?
I think it depends on how you define stardom. From an economic stand point, I think Jordan remains the number one among athletes. The commercial impact he had is more or less unprecedented and he is still said to be the one athlete that earned his partners the most. Jordan is still considered to be the most influential figure in Nike's rise to an international market leader. However, I agree that probably more people would recognize Ronaldo when shown a picture than Jordan or even Pele but this isn't the same as stardom. Nowadays, sports stars are simply much more present in the everyday life of the average person due to the development of the media and content is more easily available. I mean, there are probably more people currently who could identify the face of someone like Dele Alli or Paul Pogba than, say, George Best or Michel Laudrup but that doesn't mean that those weren't bigger sports stars.
You could probably place Ronaldo as third with only Jordan and Muhammad Ali clearly ahead of him. However, it is incredible difficult since there are still people like Tyson, Bolt, Beckham, Federer, Maradona, Pele or maybe even Schumacher (don't really know how popular he was outside of Germany, but here it was immense).
I also think that US sports people have kind of an unfair advantage. The Americans simply know how to market their stars, tell stories and give you the feeling that the whole world revolves around them (it is the same with the Super Bowle). Their sports stars simply have this certain Hollywood glamour. I don't think that any footballer comes close to the legends and the legacy associated with guys like Jordan or Ali, it is simply something else. Maybe Maradona with the whole D10S cult in Argentina, though.
That's also why Beckham was so popular around the world, I guess. Again, I can only speak for Germany but I've personally never seen a footballer getting as much media coverage as Beckham. I also think he is the most popular footballer among people who don't really care about the sport. Ronaldo may be more popular among football fans but outside of that target group my money would be on Beckham.
You could probably place Ronaldo as third with only Jordan and Muhammad Ali clearly ahead of him. However, it is incredible difficult since there are still people like Tyson, Bolt, Beckham, Federer, Maradona, Pele or maybe even Schumacher (don't really know how popular he was outside of Germany, but here it was immense).
I also think that US sports people have kind of an unfair advantage. The Americans simply know how to market their stars, tell stories and give you the feeling that the whole world revolves around them (it is the same with the Super Bowle). Their sports stars simply have this certain Hollywood glamour. I don't think that any footballer comes close to the legends and the legacy associated with guys like Jordan or Ali, it is simply something else. Maybe Maradona with the whole D10S cult in Argentina, though.
That's also why Beckham was so popular around the world, I guess. Again, I can only speak for Germany but I've personally never seen a footballer getting as much media coverage as Beckham. I also think he is the most popular footballer among people who don't really care about the sport. Ronaldo may be more popular among football fans but outside of that target group my money would be on Beckham.
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Nope.
source Forbes.
and all of them are inferior to Mayweather who with the last fight got as much as Cristiano in the last three years or so.
As far as I know Messi and Ronaldo are toe to toe in the last decade in terms of earnings. Ronaldo has a bit more from endorsements whilst Messi has more from his Barca contract.
Ronaldo is far from a single marketing machine compared to some of the others mentioned - namely Mayweather, Woods, Federer and so forth. First of all football is team sport and it has part in selling shirts.
Here's the brand value for example from last year:
Ronaldo isn't even top five.
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That's my point though. Pelé played 50 years ago and there are still 30-somethings who are not sports fans that know who Pelé is but don't know Cristiano Ronaldo. Pelé achieved a level of world wide recognition in an era without the benefits of 24/7 news media and social sharing. They may never have watched a Pelé match, or any football match for that matter. But they know who Pelé is. I'd say only Jordan, Federer, Ali and for a limited time Tiger Woods have achieved that level of recognition that transcends sports fans.
In fact, these days there are many non-football or non-sports fans that can completely avoid any news about sports unlike 50 years ago. Hence why I know people like artists and musicians that have no clue who Cristiano Ronaldo is, because they just tune out out media that isn't in their niche.
Name a few that are/were bigger. I'm not saying he is definitely the biggest, but my memory is shit.Ronaldo the biggest sports star in history
I think those estimates are complete bullshit. Either that or they use an extremely loose definition of "fan". For years, Manchester United have claimed to have 660 million fans. Almost 1/10 people in the world. That's obviously horseshit.
I find this hard to believe. Can you give me three examples where thousands partied because of Ronaldo?
Pelé is maybe more known, but that is from a historical perspective. Like Napoleon, Christopher Columbus and Pelé. If you look for the biggest superstar in sports, that is Ronaldo.
Ronaldo is the biggest sports star along side Muhammad Ali imo. Everyone knows of those two.
Oh man. Would have loved to see him back here again. For a couple of season at least. Ship has sailed now obviously.
Are you American by chance?
I like Ronaldo, I hate Federer, and I'm a Liverpool fan. Huh. If I was 10-15 years old with the enthusiasm for footy those small people have and some cash to spare I'd probably get that CR7 shirt like there's no tomorrow.
Bosnian-American.
You can do the experiment yourself.
There is simply no chance the majority of people on here wouldn't know Jordan from another basketball player.
It's complete blasphemy.
Yes, but she was in her 60's.
Has anyone mentioned how funny it would be when Ronaldo wins the CL for Juve against Buffon's PSG? It's bound to happen.
Well even if it’s a 10th so 18 million. It’s still not a stretch to believe half a million of that 18 million would buy Ronaldo shirts
I know he won't go down as the GOAT but even before social media exploded Beckham was massive everywhere.
I'd argue he has a decent case as the biggest sports star.
I'd argue he has a decent case as the biggest sports star.
To be fair - i had to google him, so i'm biased. i thought i knew what he looked like and googling confirmed it. but i am biased.
Agreed.
How many would buy an authentic Adidas top?
Not many people would be willing to shell out $100 for a football top, when he can get a Chinese counterfeit that is nigh indistinguishable. Even with our '659 millions followers', we sell about 1.5m shirts annually.
It's absolutely mental how anyone aged 10+ can worship a sportsman to the extent where he can spoute this level of nonsense.
Well, if you didn't know Ronaldo put Juventus on map. All they had done is won record number of titles in Italy and had some of the greatest players to play for them, like Platini, Zidane, Buffon and many many more but it was Ronaldo who put them on the map.
This thread is like a parody now.
I’m not a fan of Ronnie’s (he never played for AFC, simples) but I have no problem declaring him as the GOAT! His stats basically back me up
This transfer is weird though, and I’m sure it’ll be talked about for as long as there’s fans of his around. Shame for you lot that Utd. didn’t manage to sneak in a sell on clause where they snagged some of that transfer fee back.
This transfer is weird though, and I’m sure it’ll be talked about for as long as there’s fans of his around. Shame for you lot that Utd. didn’t manage to sneak in a sell on clause where they snagged some of that transfer fee back.
I dunno about that. Lots of people couldn't care less about basketball, myself included.
Spot on
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