Five Indian cricketers feature in SportsPro’s 2026 list of the 50 Most Marketable Athletes, but none of them is Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma or MS Dhoni. India ODI and Test captain Shubman Gill is the highest-ranked Indian at 13th, ahead of football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo (14th) and Lionel Messi (27th).
In 2014, Kohli was the only Indian on the list, ranking second behind Lewis Hamilton. Kevin Pietersen was the only other cricketer to feature that year. Kohli climbed to third in 2016. Both Kohli and Rohit featured in the top-50 last year, but have since slipped to 85th and 90th, respectively. Dhoni is ranked 83rd.
Two members of India’s Women’s ODI World Cup-winning team, Jemimah Rodrigues (31st) and Smriti Mandhana (37th), also feature in the top-50. Both are ranked ahead of fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah (39th), while Rishabh Pant occupies 36th place. These five — Gill, Rodrigues, Pant, Mandhana and Bumrah — are the only Indian cricketers in the top-50.
Former world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka tops the 17th edition of the list, followed by freestyle skiing champion Eileen Gu, NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, Manchester City forward Erling Haaland and seven-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz.
How the ranking is built
SportsPro considered 1,202 athletes across 70 sports before narrowing the field to 247 for a detailed assessment. The evaluation involved 27 marketability factors, hundreds of data points per athlete and more than 3,000 brand partnership records. The analysis covered audience size, search demand, media sentiment and new commercial deals.
Each athlete received a score out of 100 across three pillars:
Brand Equity (45 points): The strength, trust and reach of an athlete’s brand.
Momentum (40 points): How quickly that brand’s value is growing.
Commercial Trajectory (15 points): The athlete’s potential for future growth.
Scores are relative to the field assessed that year. In the event of a tie, the athlete with stronger momentum is ranked higher.
Among the five Indian cricketers, Gill records the strongest momentum score, while Mandhana has the highest Brand Equity score. Bumrah’s weakest component is Commercial Trajectory, with a score of 7.44.
The persona tag listed against each athlete categorises their reach as Global, Multi-Market, Regional or Local.
The wider list
Cricket’s representation in the top-50 has increased from two athletes in 2025 to five in 2026. Basketball leads the list by sport, with 13 athletes, followed by football with 11 and tennis with eight. Motorsport and American football have three athletes each, while seven other sports — skiing, figure skating, gymnastics, baseball, golf, MMA and skateboarding — have just one representative.
The list features 16 women athletes, down from 20 in 2025 and 22 in 2024. Tennis accounts for four, basketball for three, and football and cricket for two each. Five other women athletes represent different sports.
Athletes from 22 countries feature in the top-50, up from 17 last year. The United States leads with 16 representatives, followed by India.