2019 Most Valuable Athletes in Latvia

Recently being involved with several sports tech startups that focus on individual athlete’s or team’s value models I thought it would be interesting to create a brief summary about most valuable athletes currently in Latvia.

Before we jump into the athlete value ranks let’s look at the main value estimation models. There, of course, are several models, my favorite Model of Athlete Brand Image which is more conceptual and ESPN’s Athlete Value Evaluation Formula.

MABI: Model of Athlete Brand Image

A conceptual model of athlete brand image (MABI) is developed incorporating three key dimensions:

• Athletic performance
• Attractive appearance
• Marketable lifestyle

ESPN’s Athlete Value Evaluation Formula

ESPN's Sports Analytic Group ranked them based on a proprietary formula that took into account three main factors:

• SEARCH SCORE

Which measures how often a name is searched, using Christiano Ronaldo's score of 100 as a baseline;

• ENDORSEMENTS DOLLARS

Sources ranged from Forbes to ESPN contributors;

• SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS

Since not all athletes are on every platform, ESPN used only the number from their most popular account. So if an athlete had 2 million Instagram followers but his or her other accounts had only 1 million followers, the social media score was 2 million.

Top 3 Most Valuable Latvian Male Athletes

Most likely, this period's most valuable athlete is basketball player Kristaps Porzingis (1,6m followers on Instagram @kporzee), who plays at NBA Dallas Mavericks, followed by World Boxing Super Series Boxer Mairis Briedis (Search Volume 14'800/m). In the 3rd place, there is a stable entry, well known in Latvia and motocross world Pauls Jonass (115k followers on Instagram @paulsjonass41).

Excellent sports results over a long period of time, excellent shape and ability to represent themselves in public space are the basis for being the most valuable Latvian athletes. Shorter or longer trauma periods do not prevent the athletes from growing their personal value.

Top 3 Most Valuable Latvian Female Athletes

I think these roles are played by our famous tennis players A?ona Ostapenko and Anastasia Sevastova. The high achievements of the 2018 world tennis courts and the achievements of this year in the Latvian ladies team at FedCup.com. Elena lead's with incredible high search volume on search engines with 60'500/monthly searches and 176k followers on Instagram @jelena.ostapenko. It is not a big surprise that Sevastova is little behind with 27'100 searches/month. The 3rd place is rigorously occupied by famous weightlifter Rebeka Koha with an impressive group of Instagram @rebeka_koha (followers 75'700).

Most Valuable Male Athlete in the World - Cristiano Ronaldo

For benchmark reasons, I thought it would be interesting to analyze also the most valuable male athlete in the world. In 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo has become the most valuable athlete in the world based on the ESPN evaluation model. Social media platforms have 157 million followers at this moment and monthly search engine queries come in at 9,140,000 searches monthly. That’s a lot!

Most Valuable Female Athlete in the World - Serena Williams

At the highest point (12th) in this version of the ladies is Serena Williams. The American tennis player took a hiatus from the sport to focus on her pregnancy last year. But despite being away from the game, she remained the most visible women's player in tennis. She graced many magazine covers, wrote an article on the gender pay gap for Fortune, and married Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. She has 10,7m followers on Instagram @serenawilliams and 3,350,000 monthly search engine queries.

My next articles about neighboring countries and famous athletes coming soon.