Who are the Current Professional Athletes with the Highest PeekScores?

What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news. For first time visitors a more in-depth explanation of what the PeekScore is, and how to increase your own, can be found by clicking through here.

It’s been a while since we’ve done a list like this, but the good folks over at Forbes suggested this, and it seemed like a great idea. Forbes recently featured their list of who they determined to be 2013′s Most Influential Athletes (which you can read all about here). They asked that we compile our own list of the athletes with the highest PeekScores, for the purposes of comparing their list to ours. This sounded like a fun and perhaps even illuminating undertaking.

What PeekScores measure are digital impacts and presences; or “digital footprints,” as we call them (a concept you will find explained in brief in the header above, and more in depth here). The names on this fairly surprising list speak loudly and clearly to nothing so much as the truly international nature of the Web. Fewer than half the names on the list are Americans, and a sizable portion play a sport which — while the most popular sport in the world by a healthy margin — is quite famously all but ignored in the states.

The breakdown, for those keeping score, is:

7 soccer players
5 basketball players
4 tennis players
2 race car drivers
1 boxer
1 cricketer
1 snowboarder
1 golfer
1 sprinter
1 swimmer
1 NFL football player

While we’re certain this list is bound to irk some and tickle others (although we remind you that this list reflects no opinions whatsoever), we suggest that you share your feelings in the comment section here and let us know all about it, either way.

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Cristiano Ronaldo Portuguese soccer player for Spanish team Real Madrid 10.00 / 10.00
2

Sebastian Vettel German Formula One racing driver 10.00 / 10.00
3

David Beckham English footballer who currently plays for French team Paris Saint-Germain 10.00 / 10.00
4

Lebron James American basketball player for the NBA’s Miami Heat  10.00 / 10.00
5

Kobe Bryant American basketball player for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers 10.00 / 10.00
6

Lionel Messi Argentine soccer player who plays for the Spanish team FC Barcelona 9.96 / 10.00
7

Tiger Woods American golfer 9.95 / 10.00
8

Maria Sharapova Russian tennis player 9.67 / 10.00
9

Serena Williams American tennis player 9.61 / 10.00
10

Didier Drogba Ivorian footballer who plays for Turkish team Galatasaray 9.36 / 10.00
11

Manny Pacquiao Filipino boxer and politican 9.28 / 10.00
12

Kevin Durant American basketball player for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder 9.27 / 10.00
13

Roger Federer Swiss tennis player 9.26 / 10.00
14

Wayne Rooney English soccer player for the Premier League team Manchester United 9.20 / 10.00
15

Sachin Tendulkar Indian cricketer 9.18 / 10.00
16

Fernando Torres Spanish soccer player who plays for the Premier League team Chelsea 9.17 / 10.00
17

Rafael Nadal Spanish tennis player 9.16 / 10.00
18

Kaká Brazilian soccer player who plays for the Spanish team Real Madrid 9.15 / 10.00
19

Usain Bolt Jamaican sprinter 9.13 / 10.00
20

Peyton Manning American football player for the NFL’s Denver Broncos 9.10 / 10.00
21

Shaun White American snowboarder 9.09 / 10.00
22

Danica Patrick American racing driver 9.05 / 10.00
23

Carmelo Anthony American basketball player for the NBA’s New York Knicks 9.02 / 10.00
24

Chris Paul American basketball player for the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers 8.99 / 10.00
25

Michael Phelps American swimmer 8.90 / 10.00

A Comparison of the Online Lives of the World’s Top-Paid Athletes

What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

This concept today could not be simpler: Below is a list of last year’s ten highest paid athletes in the world. In keeping with the kinds of things we get up to here at the PeekScore blog, we’ve decided to see to what degree their compensation corresponds to their visibility, activity, and presence here in cyberspace. We already know that in the case of some of the individuals listed below, a great many don’t believe their athletic abilities alone have gone very far in justifying their arguably obscene, and objectively handsome, paydays. But what of these athletes’ efforts and abilities to reach their spotty, slouchy lessers out here in the ever-expanding, in both size and import, online realm? The PeekScores provide their answers, scientifically and objectively as always.

Who do you like on this list? Who would you have preferred to see on this list? Who do you believe should be the top earning athletes? Do you hate A-Rod? Comment and let us know. (AND PLEASE KEEP SCROLLING ONCE YOU READ THE LIST, FOR FURTHER COMMENTARY.)

Rank Picture Name Earnings from May ’10 – May ’11 PeekScore
1

Cristiano Ronaldo
$38 million
10 / 10
2

LeBron James
$48 million
9.66 / 10
3

Tiger Woods
$75 million
9.56 / 10
4

Lionel Messi
$32.3 million
9.05 / 10
5

David Beckham
$40 million
9.01/ 10
6

Roger Federer
$47 million
8.95 / 10
7

Kobe Bryant
$53 million
8.76 / 10
8

Michael Schumacher
$34 million
8.05 / 10
9

Alex Rodriguez
$35 million
8.04 / 10
10

Phil Mickelson
$46.5 million
7.74 / 10

AND NOW, AS PROMISED, FURTHER COMMENTARY FROM THE FOLKS AT THE PEEKSCORE BLOG:

This list is not meant so much as a companion to the top earning models list, as it is merely coincidentally a different group of mostly genetically blessed individuals whose efforts, time, and mere presence are extremely well remunerated. It is for the good of mankind that we not associate the lists with one another even in casual conversation, nor even in an informal, relatively frivolous blogging context. Regardless of all the well-meaning talk of the meek one day inheriting our burdened little globe, the fact is that proclamation was initially made two-thousand years ago, and last we checked the meek – some of whom are employed here – were still left empty-handed. If anyone’s to be remaining standing tall when it all goes down, let’s face it; it’s going to be the prettiest, the fastest, and the richest. If they pull themselves away from their mirrors, baby oil, and piles of money long enough to recognize this fact, our inevitable demise will only be hastened.

The men on this list and the women on the world’s best paid models list would find themselves with a horrific combination of fitness, attractiveness, fortune, and global influence (as measured by their PeekScores) at their disposal were the individuals represented on each ever to get together and resolve to pool their considerable gifts. It is attributable either to their mercy or their frankly apparent stupidity, that they’ve not yet harnessed the ungodly power of their combined resources and done away with the nuisance which is we “meek,” and set about repopulating this sphere with the race of grossly overpaid juiceheads and bulimics agile, able, and visually appealing homo superiors their unions would certainly spawn.

Giselle Bündchen, who topped our models list – both in earnings and online influence – is romantically attached to the 13th best paid athlete on the planet. We people are grateful, as his relatively laughable $31 million year has kept him out of the top ten, and kept us safely out of harm’s way. Even if he’d earned enough to warrant inclusion on the list, his adequate, but unimpressive PeekScore would have found him at a meager 8th place. Their spawn is strong, but not yet strong enough to take down the combined meek, as we remain for the moment legion, and many of us still have higher PeekScores than Mr. Brady.

As we here at the PeekScore blog are largely Americans (although it must be stressed this is not true for the greater PeekYou, as a whole), and have therefore not cared about soccer since America’s brief, faddish fixation with it in the 1970s (and also a fleeting period of fascination every four years until the U.S. is inevitably knocked out of the World Cup), we don’t know as much about the gentleman topping our list as we should. But, Cristiano Ronaldo surely has earned our respect and admiration today, and we remain grateful that he and Giselle have either not comprehended – or perhaps did understand, but humanely considered – the consequences of their potential union, and granted us just this short time more to be the meek we are, and (meekly) admire their wealth, beauty, and online prowess, and their agents’ abilities to negotiate for them outlandish contracts.

If These Guys Are So Tech Savvy, How Come Their Cars Don’t Fly?: Comparing the Online Importance of the Top Ranked Formula 1™ Racers

What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

When we think of the Formula One greats of the past – such as Jackie Stewart, Jimmy Clark, Ayrton Senna, Goggles Paesano, and Racer X – we don’t much think of computers, smart phones, or terms such as “digital footrpints,” “social media,” “wiki,” “widget” or “app.” What crosses our racing minds are isolated, solitary, brave Germans and Italians zipping along – in as masculine a fashion as one can “zip” – at improbably fast speeds, in really cool looking cars. We think of how because it’s European, and we’re pretentious New Yorkers, Formula One seems somehow classier than NASCAR. And, really, we think most of all of the horrible smell of the burning rayon from when the carpet nearly caught fire when the AFX Daytona Race Set got too hot, and how we had to figure out a way to cover the burn because mom and dad were gonna be really peeved off, and how the instructions absolutely warned not to use the stupid thing on carpet… but who reads instructions at 7 years of age, and on Christmas morning? Yeah, we sure think about a lot of things when talk turns to Formula One, but cyberspace and the importance of certain individuals within it generally are not among them.

No matter, though, to where our thoughts may wander, particularly as we’re not terribly bright, and as – despite the degree to which we forgo our beloved world wide web in our own thoughts of Formula One – the top 10 racers in the current Formula One standings (as of 5/29/11) are a well and fully wired-in lot. Check out these PeekScores below, and marvel at the degrees to which these speedy fellas, in their well-sponsored jumpsuits, clearly utilize the phenomenal tools of the internet to keep in the world’s minds their tireless (no pun) efforts to drive even faster than the next guy.

If the internet were a race, which it totally is incidentally, then today Fernando Alonso would be the winner. Let us all greet him in the winner’s circle.

Do you have a favorite racer not featured below? Do you prefer NASCAR? Do you hate auto-racing? Do they have winner’s circles in Formula One? Let us know.

Rank Picture Name Place in the 5/29/11 Standings PeekScore
1

Fernando Alonso
5
10 / 10
2

Sebastian Vettel
1
10/ 10
3

Nick Heidfeld
6
9.23 / 10
4

Jenson Button
4
9.17 / 10
5

Lewis Hamilton
2
9.09/ 10
6

Mark Webber
3
9.01 / 10
7

Nico Rosberg
7
8.35 / 10
8

Felipe Massa
8
8.03 / 10
9

Kamui Kobayashi
10
7.70 / 10
10

Vitaly Petrov
9
8.07 / 10