Which NBA Superstar Has the Highest PeekScore?

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.

The 2011-2012 NBA season is now a couple of months under way, but we here at the PeekScore blog have been remiss in our duties to give the men of professional basketball, and their various digital footprints, a looking at and a quantifying. Indeed, it’s been months since we’ve compiled such a survey.

As the list below consists exclusively of superstars, it’s not surprising that each comes with a sizable PeekScore – with our top two all-stars carrying our ultimate PeekScore of 10 – but within that somewhat narrow range there are differences in cyber-impact to be observed.

As is always the case here at the blog, this isn’t a commentary on the qualities of these gentlemen as basketball players, or as personalities, or as men, we’re simply observing and reporting on how their respective impacts here in the digital realm compare to one another.

We know some of you folks out there will have something to say. Chime in. Let us know who you’d like to have seen on this list. Leave us a comment and let us know who you like, or who you don’t.

Rank Picture Name Team PeekScore
1

LeBron James Miami Heat 10.00 / 10.00
2

Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers 10.00 / 10.00
3

Carmelo Anthony New York Knicks 9.45 / 10.00
4

Kevin Durant Oklahoma City Thunder 9.43 / 10.00
5

Chris Paul Los Angeles Clippers 9.35 / 10.00
6

Dwight Howard Orlando Magic 9.31 / 10.00
7

Derrick Rose Chicago Bulls 9.28 / 10.00
8

Amar’e Stoudemire New York Knicks 9.09 / 10.00
9

Dirk Nowitzki Dallas Mavericks 8.98 / 10.00
10

Dwayne Wade Miami Heat 8.83 / 10.00

PeekScore Competitions: Top Paid Athletes, Male vs. Female

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.

A “Battle of the Sexes” seems a bit of a dated concept, we’ll admit. It smacks of the 1970s, when such contests were staged in an effort to commercially exploit the Women’s liberation movement. Some such spectacles had legitimate historical, symbolic significance – such as when Billie Jean King faced off against Bobby Riggs – but in general it seems we’re a bit past such overt “us vs. them” thinking in addressing the various, still vividly existing disparities in our culture in how each gender is regarded and generally treated.

While the PeekScore blog has by no means in the past wholesale resisted passing observation and relatively lighthearted commentary on the realities of our patriarchal world, we’re not here to preach. Really, the pairing of this installment of PeekScore Competitions was inspired by nothing so much as the simple fact that the two groups already existed, all lumped-together, nicely packaged, listed and ready to be used by us.

Back in June, Forbes shared with we of the eternally fascinated middle-class their list of the year’s Top Paid Athletes. We gave these handsomely remunerated sportspersons a moment of our PeekScore time, and all was right with the world. However, at least in part due to the above referenced disparities in our culture (which we promised not to dwell on here), the list was also a de facto list of the year’s top paid male athletes. Aware of this, evidently, Forbes has just released their list of the year’s highest paid female athletes. So, for fun, and because you folks seem to dig our PeekScore rankings of the top-paid thises or thats, and you seem to get a kick out of our competitions pairings, we’ve updated the men’s list’s scores (and they did change some) and pitted the dudes against the ladies.

While we needn’t even leave you to guess over which group made more money (again, we’ll steer clear of further commentary), when it comes to digital footprints it may not be so clear to which team the higher numbers belong. So, let us start by looking at the women.

TOP PAID FEMALE ATHLETES

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

Serena Williams
$10.5 million
10.00 / 10.00
2

Maria Sharapova
$25 million
10.00 / 10.00
2

Danica Patrick
$12 million
9.88 / 10.00
4

Venus Williams
$11.5 million
9.00 / 10.00
5

Caroline Wozniacki
$12.5 million
8.25 / 10.00
6

Kim Clijsters
$11 million
8.25 / 10.00
7

Ana Ivanovic
$6 million
8.24 / 10.00
8

Kim Yu-na
$10 million
8.22 / 10.00
9

Paula Creamer
$5.5 million
8.21 / 10.00
10

Li Na
$8 million
7.27 / 10.00

AVERAGE PEEKSCORE: 8.73

This list, dominated by tennis players, shows a very web savvy bunch. Enormously popular Twitter accounts and Facebook pages exist for the majority, and robust personal sites and strong media coverage are the norm throughout as well. In general, when it comes to the PeekScore thing, it would be tough to find too many other groupings who would fare much better. Female tennis players – as well as at least some race car drivers, golfers, and figure skaters – are apparently well and fully aware of social media’s place in our modern world, and are not shy about participating in that sphere.

But what of the boys? Well, rather than belabor the point, or make any clumsy jokes, it’s probably for the best that we just see for ourselves.

TOP PAID MALE ATHLETES

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

Cristiano Ronaldo
$38 million
10.00 / 10.00
2

LeBron James
$48 million
9.32 / 10.00
3

Tiger Woods
$75 million
9.26 / 10.00
4

Lionel Messi
$32.3 million
9.03 / 10.00
5

Roger Federer
$47 million
8.95 / 10.00
6

David Beckham
$40 million
8.84 / 10.00
7

Kobe Bryant
$53 million
8.76 / 10.00
8

Michael Schumacher
$34 million
8.05 / 10.00
9

Alex Rodriguez
$35 million
8.04 / 10.00
10

Phil Mickelson
$46.5 million
7.62 / 10.00

AVERAGE PEEKSCORE: 8.88

The Digital Footprints of Ten of the Greatest Living Legends in Sports

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.

Hello there PeekScore faithful. The premise of this entry could not be simpler. The staff here at the PeekScore blog compiled a list of ten living, international superstar athletes; 7 retired, 3 still active. Each considered at least great by most, and by many considered to be the very greatest of all time at his chosen sport. With the list compiled – after some amount of debate here at the office – we set about sorting these esteemed gentlemen not according to our relatively subjective assessments of their athletic prowess or records, but according to their PeekScores.

To varying degrees each of these gentlemen is a national, and in many cases an international, brand. As such, nearly all has at a minimum an official website, and often a website connected to a more corporate, charitable, and/or commercial venture. All are, to varying degrees, headline worthy and well documented throughout the web, and their mostly healthy PeekScores surely reflect this. Some have official Twitter and/or Facebook accounts, and the international superstar topping our list has both, with followers on each numbering in the millions. In the relatively social media shy company of the remainder of this list, his victory was assured.

I know this is a matter where many have strong opinions. What are yours? Who doesn’t belong on our list? Who would you have included instead? Who might you have expected to see have a higher PeekScore? Or lower? Let us know in the comments.

Rank Picture Name Sport PeekScore
1

Sachin Tendulkar Cricket 10.00 / 10
2

Tiger Woods Golf 9.56 / 10
3

Wayne Gretzky Hockey 9.09 / 10
4

Michael Jordan Basketball 9.07 / 10
5

Roger Federer Tennis 8.95 / 10
6

Muhammad Ali Boxing 8.62 / 10
7

Pelé
Football/Soccer 8.05 / 10
8

Diego Maradona Football/Soccer 8.05 / 10
9

Jim Brown NFL Football 8.04 / 10
10

Willie Mays Baseball 6.01 / 10

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.

Top 10 Players Remaining in the 2011 NBA Playoffs

Today, an urgently worded interoffice memo crossed the very long desk of the PeekScore blog collective (the puzzling and poorly thought through logistics of which are explained in excruciating detail here). This block-capitalized, and sparingly punctuated (apart from five smudged exclamation points at its close) communiqué was intended to announce to the PeekScore staff, in terms lacking ambiguity (or much in the way of reasonable choice), that the “powers that be” would like for the PeekScore blog to again write about basketball, and “DO ONE OF THOSE THINGS YOU DO WITH THE NUMBERS AND ALL THAT BUT WITH LIKE LEBRON AND STUFF.” This, nothing if not impassioned, dispatch from on high then added that its author, for whom we all happen to work, would also like for us to compose this proposed entry about basketball “…WELL” (partial quote with expletives excised, as – despite the fact that they comprised the memo’s bulk – they really added little apart from some color). Finally, after sharing a desired timeline for completion of this project, a provisional – although somewhat insincere seeming, to be honest – best wishes in our “VERY PROBABLE” near-future job searches was provided as a sign-off.

Through heavy sobs, and amidst panicked phone calls home to spouses, significant others, children, and even one estranged sibling, to make certain they knew how much we loved them (just in case), we hastily debated, and finally compiled – through fits and faints and at least one emergency room visit – our list of the top 10 NBA stars who remain, as of this writing, in the playoffs. The list is below.

We are aware that the “bio” blurbs below are rather dry and straightforward – as opposed to insightful and visionary, as they usually are – but we were told, under what could arguably be described as coercion, not to be “STUPID LIKE YOU ALWAYS ARE.” Not quite certain what was meant by that, we’re not taking any chances. We had, with a previous NBA related list, attempted more thoughtful captions, but the intern we assigned to write them didn’t know much about basketball and wound up compensating for the lapse by making a bunch of distasteful puns out of the players’ names (for example: “Paul Pierce should really be called Pol Pot for the way he dominates the court with an iron fist, and cleanses the floor with the opposing team”, or “José Juan Barea dribbles like he’s got a bad case of José Juan Diarrhea of the hands”… truly, truly awful stuff). It’s better this way, trust us.

Who did we miss? Who would you have included? How do you feel about the order of this list? Who’d be your number one? Do you hate basketball? Let us know in the comments.

Picture Name Bio PeekScore


LeBron James 9.66 out of 10. With too many accolades to pick just one, James has – not without some well publicized controversy – been with the Heat since 2010.


Dwayne Wade 9.63 out of 10. Sports Illustrated‘s Sportsman of the Year in 2006, Wade has been with the Heat since 2003.


Kevin Durant 9.35 out of 10. The ’07-’08 NBA Rookie of the Year, Durant has been with the Oklahoma City Thunder (formerly Seattle SuperSonics) since 2007.


Mike Conley Jr. 8.13 out of 10. A first round draft pick out of Ohio State, Conley has been with the Grizzlies since 2007


Dirk Nowitzki 8.06 out of 10. A ten time NBA All-Star, Nowitzki has been with the Mavericks since 1998.


Derrick Rose 7.24 out of 10. The ’08-’09 NBA Rookie of the Year, Rose has been with the Bulls since 2008.


Peja Stojaković 7.04 out of 10. A three time NBA All-Star, Stojaković has only been with the Mavericks since earlier this year.


Zach Randolph 7.01 out of 10. An NBA All-Star in 2010, Randolph has been with the Grizzlies since 2009.


DeShawn Stevenson 6.37 out of 10.Coming to the NBA straight out of high school, back in 2000, Stevenson has been with he Mavericks since 2010.


José Juan Barea 5.45 out of 10. CAA Player of the Year in 2006, Barea has been with the Mavericks since 2007.