Picture Credit: Twitter
Cristiano Ronaldo, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner has topped Hoppers HQ’s Instagram rich athlete list 2023 for the third successive year. The 38-year-old global footballing icon has finished in first place ahead of his compatriot Lionel Messi, the FIFA World Cup winning captain from Argentina, while, Virat Kohli, the former Indian cricket captain, is listed at third place among all the athletes worldwide.
Last month, Cristiano Ronaldo was named by Forbes as the world’s highest-paid athlete, for the first time since 2017, after he had completed his move from Manchester United to Al-Nassr. Moreover, Hopper HQ, which has compiled the rich athlete list, is an Instagram scheduling tool, performing analysis on internal and publicly available data in regard to how much a user can charge for any post on either Instagram or YouTube.
The Portuguese football player, boasting over 600 million followers on Instagram, commands a whopping $3.23 million per post. Lionel Messi charges $2.59 million per Instagram post, thanks to his 480 million followers. These two sporting athletes are also the top two on the Hopper HQ’s rich celebrities’ list on Instagram, which goes to show how much impact the beautiful game has on a global audience.
Virat Kohli, the Indian cricketing superstar, who is in third place on the rich athlete’s list and 14th overall, brings in $680,000 per post on Instagram, with his 64.5 million followers. Some of the other athletes behind him are Neymar Jr, LeBron James, Kylian Mbappe, and Steph Curry, among others.
Also Read: Five players who earn more than Virat Kohli through central contracts; check here
Mike Bandar, the co-founder of Hopper HQ was quoted as saying about the Instagram rich list, “It’s still shocking to me that the annual money made on the platform increases every year.”
“Yet, what fascinates me more is the consistent players at the top. It’s apparent that the glitz and glamour of traditional celebrities still holds power over the new ‘influencer’ status,” he added.
“Ronaldo and Messi not only dominate the pitch, but also the digital sphere as it’s clear they personify the power of personal branding and the influence it holds over us ‘ordinary’ people,” Mike Bandar further remarked.
