Greek basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo is third on SportsPro’s 2026 list of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes, behind tennis player Aryna Sabalenka and skier Eileen Gu.

The Athens-born Miami Heat forward finished ahead of Norway striker Erling Haaland, who placed fourth. Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz was fifth, according to the ranking by SportsPro.

Haaland was the highest-ranked footballer and the only footballer among the top 10 most marketable athletes. Belarus’s Sabalenka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, was the only athlete to score above 80 out of 100, with 80.95.

She is also the fourth woman and the third tennis player to top the list since it began in 2010. Chinese freestyle skier Gu, an Olympic champion, placed second.

How the most marketable athletes list works

SportsPro, a London-based sports business publisher, released its 17th annual list on 27 October with NorthStar Solutions Group. Each athlete received a score out of 100 across three areas.

First, brand equity counted for 45 points, while momentum and current popularity counted for 40. Finally, commercial trajectory, or room to grow, counted for 15 points.

SportsPro’s model weighed 27 marketability drivers and more than 3,000 brand partnership records. It considered 1,202 athletes from 70 sports and then fully assessed 247 of them.

The data covered the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. So the list of most marketable athletes reflects a full year of commercial and online activity, rather than wins and losses alone.

Ronaldo and Messi slide down the table

Further down the list, Al Nassr striker Cristiano Ronaldo dropped from fifth last year to 14th. Argentina great Lionel Messi placed 27th.

Similarly, Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane ranked 45th, even though the England captain won the Ballon d’Or in October.

For Antetokounmpo, the result tops his previous best. In 2023 he climbed to fourth place among the most marketable athletes on the SportsPro list, up from 38th a year earlier.

He moved from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Heat ahead of the 2026–27 NBA season and bought a home in Miami in September. In late October, he helped the Heat to their first win of the season.

Source: ERT NEWS