Cristiano Ronaldo’s grip on football’s commercial pyramid has loosened. SportsPro’s 17th annual ranking of the world’s most marketable athletes, published on 27 October by the industry publication and its research partner NorthStar Solutions Group, has Ronaldo down nine places at 14th and Erling Haaland in as the only footballer in the top 10.
Haaland sits fourth overall on the list, behind tennis world number one Aryna Sabalenka, freestyle skier Eileen Gu and NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, with Carlos Alcaraz fifth. The 100-point NorthStar model weights brand equity (45), momentum (40) and commercial trajectory (15), and this year assessed 1,202 athletes across 70 sports.
‘The twilight of his career’
Michael Long, SportsPro’s head of commercial content, framed the Ronaldo slide as the headline shift of the 2026 edition in comments to Goal.
“There’s a case to say Ronaldo’s marketability is on the wane as he enters the twilight of his career following his move to Saudi Arabia,” Long told Goal.
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He kept the long-term reading on Ronaldo generous, describing the 41-year-old as a global icon with established brand equity set against Haaland as a star on the rise with considerable commercial momentum.
The 2026 World Cup rocket fuel
The engine for Haaland’s leap is Norway’s run at the 2026 World Cup. He finished the tournament with seven goals in five matches, including two late strikes to knock out Brazil 2-1 at New York New Jersey Stadium on 5 July, a win that sent Norway to the first World Cup quarter-final in their history.
The off-pitch numbers were just as large. Haaland added around 32 million Instagram followers over the course of the tournament, more than any other player, per Goal.
A different playbook from Ronaldo
Where Ronaldo built the modern template for a footballer-as-brand on Instagram, Haaland is leaning into YouTube. His personal channel, launched in October 2025, has 4.6 million subscribers and close to 250 million views, driven in no small part by a seven-minute vlog about getting a haircut that passed 10 million.
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Haaland’s partnership roster, which includes Nike, Beats by Dre, Breitling and Budweiser, is still shorter than Ronaldo’s, but Goal highlighted his personality, humour and relatability as the qualities carrying his audience beyond the game.
Where the other names landed
The footballers usually grouped at the top of the commercial pyramid are a long way down the 2026 list. Kylian Mbappé came in at 19, Vinícius Jr at 20, Lamine Yamal at 23 and Neymar at 24, with Lionel Messi further back still.
Haaland himself kept the reaction short, telling Norwegian daily VG via Goal that the summer had been “the coolest weeks and the journey I have had in my entire life.” He is 26, and the next edition of the ranking is a full year away.
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