By: Natasha Archary
Finally, a sports quiz that anyone can answer! Who’s the most famous sports personality in the world?
But the question leaves everyone divided because when it comes to the most famous sports personality in the world, everyone has their favourite.
Anyone who listens to Kaya Drive with Sizwe Dhlomo however will know that healthy debate is standard and all views are welcome.
Siz left the question open and the criteria to answer was not restricted to the sporting genre, period or gender so it made things really difficult.
Football
When it comes to the most popular sports in the world, football tops the list as the most-watched sport. With 1.1 billion people watching the 2018 FIFA World Cup final and the tournament drawing 3.572 billion eyeballs from across the world.
If that is the benchmark by which one has to pick the most famous sports personality then in present-day the answer would most likely be Portuguese national Christiano Ronaldo. With 346 million followers on Instagram, he’s also the most influential footballer, probably in history.
Love him or hate him, the question isn’t “Who’s the best footballer,” because then he’d have competition as Lionel Messi is ranked as one of the most talented stars in the sport.
Ronaldo is also the most searched sporting personality in the Google global annual search statistics for 2021.
Basketball
Outside of football, Kaya Drive listeners named basketball star Michael Jordan, who’s worth $1.6 billion.
The retired American professional basketball player and businessman, is the principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association and of 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Jordan is regarded as the NBA’s greatest player of all-time, having won 6-titles with the Chicago Bulls.
Boxing
Muhammad Ali dubbed himself “The Greatest” but he is widely referred to as the most significant and celebrated figures of the 20th century. He was the first to win the world heavyweight championship on 3 separate occasions.
Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton may have surpassed Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 Grand Prix wins, surpassing the feat with 99 titles, but Michael Schumacher is to this day one of the most famous F1 drivers.
Michael Schumacher had a skiing accident in the French Alps in 2013 which ended his career after he sustained a serious injury to his brain which left him in a coma.
He hit his head on a rock while skiing off-piste in Meribel and was air-lifted to a hospital in Grenoble.
After undergoing two surgeries, Schumacher was placed in a medically induced coma for six months to help reduce the swelling of his brain. Schumacher was then moved to another hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland after coming out of his coma in 2014 and after 250 days returned to his Lake Geneva home.
Tennis
The Williams sisters have to be ranked as the most famous sisters in the sport. Serena has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time behind Margaret Court. Venus is a former No.1 and is widely considered one of the greatest in women’s tennis.
The sisters have a biopic that will star Will Smith as Richard Willams, their dad who wanted his daughters to get into professional tennis so much that he had a 78-page plan for their careers before they were even born.
Kaya Drive listeners picked their most famous sporting personalities:



