HERO Sports profiles excellence in the various sporting disciplines every once a week and again once a year. That is commendable because sifting through the various news articles of occurrences in the pitches in the whole country can be a tad tedious, yet it is important information that people need to have.
Another publication that does something similar is The Telegraph, whose profile catalogue, however, began only a couple of years ago. And, though they have done a great job to include all sportsmen from all walks of life, including punters who will be most comfortable applying a code from FanDuel.
According to them and other media sources, these three are likely to make the 2019 list.
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1. Christiano Ronaldo
According to ESPN, the Portuguese soccer maestro still leads the list of the sportsmen to watch in the year 2019. With a social media following of almost 150 million and a glowing performance even after moving out of the glory days of Real Madrid and the Spanish La Liga, he has managed to stamp his authority and confirmed his position in Juventus.
While the debate on who is a better soccer player between him and the Argentine Lionel Messi is still raging, CR7 showed he is all talent by scoring a hat trick that saw Atletico Madrid bid the UEFA Champions League goodbye. The almost $50 million he raked in in endorsements this year seem to affirm ESPN’s assertions.
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2. LeBron James
Considered the best basketballer of his time and the fourth all-time NBA scorer with more than 30,000 points, King James is still doing marvelously well even after a move to the average West Coast franchise, the Los Angeles Lakers.
Despite having a career that is well into its twilight years, the Big J is still a subject of interest from teams such as The New Orleans Pelicans. He commands more than $50 million annually in endorsements.
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3. Lionel Messi
Messi easily is the greatest best footballer of all time. Since the diminutive Argentine joined Barcelona F.C. in 2004, he has won four UEFA Champions League winners’ medal and nine Spanish La Liga titles. The online blip in this exceedingly glowing list of achievements is his failure to give Argentina the FIFA World Cup trophy.
Still, Messi has a media following of almost 105 million and an annual endorsement of about $30 million. Aside from the great performance in the field, voters do pay attention to these two key ingredients when picking who they think should take home the sports heroes title.
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In conclusion
While the year still has some six more months to go, the contenders for the most influential sportsmen or women are already busy in the pitches making a difference. Join in to see who the hero will be in the end.
