ESPN top 100 athletes since year 2000

[Machinehead]

There's a lot wrong with this list, but 22nd isn't a bad spot at all for Crosby.

There's nobody ahead of him that I'm moving.

 

[Machinehead]

I would also like to take issue with the WNBA inclusions. A'ja Wilson should be higher.

 

[Sypher04]

Crosby has won essentially everything there is to win in hockey, and more than once for most of it, while also being the greatest NHL player of the salary cap era.

22 is not high enough.

 

[Machinehead]

Crosby has won essentially everything there is to win in hockey, and more than once for most of it, while also being the greatest NHL player of the salary cap era.

22 is not high enough.

Yeah, but everyone ahead of him also did that.

Look at some of the names he's ahead of: Peyton Manning, Floyd Mayweather, Nikola Jokic, Mike Trout. It's huge recognition to have Crosby as high as he is.

The latter half of the list is sketch but I don't think their top 25 or so has many holes. When it's men AND women in literally every sport, top 25 is a generational talent.

The only athletes out of the 21 ahead of Crosby that Crosby really has a case against are football guys, solely on the basis of it being a one-country sport. And even then, Brady and Mahomes are arguably the two best to ever play that sport.

Crosby should be ahead of Aaron Donald, that's about it.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

Do you blame your dog for peeing on the fire hydrant? Similarly, you should understand ESPN and their agenda.

 

[Machinehead]

Grow the sport? Brother majority of people didn’t even care until this season

Do you think people just woke up one day and started watching Caitlin Clark?

She broke barriers but players before her put the eyeballs on her to begin with.

 

[Sampe from the 2000s]

For those who don't understand motor sports, horse racing or esports:

"Sport" comes from "disport", which in turn comes from the Old French verb "desporter" = "to seek amusement". Now this is more a figurative meaning; the literal meaning is "to carry/lead away" (as in carry the mind away from serious matters). If you want a more restrictive definition without forcing an entirely new meaning, then a sport must involve the act of carrying something. But then most sports actually do involve carrying something, be it chess pieces, your own body, or gloves.

"Athlete" comes from the Greek word "athlos", meaning "a contest", or in neuter form athlon, "the prize of a contest" (as in biathlon, triathlon). Athletes contest for a prize then.

 

[CowbellConray]

Yeah by that logic you could have Ngannou, Aspinall, or Emilianenko higher.

His accomplishment are impressive but he lost to Reyes, has one fight in almost 5 years, and popped multiple times. Give me GSP over him any day.

He didn’t lose to Reyes, the judges gave Jones the win. He is undefeated and has held a belt in the UFC for over 13 years. GSP lost - simple as that.

Jon Jones is the single greatest martial artist ever. Both in accomplishment and tenure. He should absolutely be in the top 50.

Back to hockey, McDavid is too low, by 10ish spots

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

He didn’t lose to Reyes, the judges gave Jones the win. He is undefeated and has held a belt in the UFC for over 13 years. GSP lost - simple as that.

Jon Jones is the single greatest martial artist ever. Both in accomplishment and tenure. He should absolutely be in the top 50.

Back to hockey, McDavid is too low, by 10ish spots

He isn't undefeated, he lost to Matt Hamill.

 

[CowbellConray]

He isn't undefeated, he lost to Matt Hamill.

Let me adjust to - he has never been defeated. He has a DQ to Matt Hamill, which to your point is a loss on the books. However, Jones has never been defeated via an opponent in his career.

My point about GSP remains - he lost via KO and sub in his career. Jones hasn't.

 

[fasterthanlight]

There's probably a bit of anti-hockey bias here, but tbh, these cross-sport lists are meaningless

 

[Nogatco Rd]

You know how when a whale dies its carcass sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and a normally nutrient-barren environment is transformed into a bustling feeding ground that supports an entire ecosystem of scavengers for several months?

That’s basically what these types of articles are. Fodder for us bottom feeders who are addicted to talking sports, during the dog days of summer when the only sports to talk about are baseball and WNBA.

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

List isn’t that terrible, it’s not good but not terrible

I’d give it 3.6 Roentgen

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

And Jon Jones being 66? I'll just say one thing: Lock all 100 of those athletes in a room, where only 1 of them leave alive, and Jon Jones is leaving that room.

Jon Jones is not taking down Aaron Donald.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Reyes won the fight, Jon still the goat tho

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Shaq is more of a celebrity and Lidstrom is too white.

Connor McDavid is #98 on the list, but I’m sure Lidstrom is being slighted not because he’s a hockey player, but because he’s white.

 

[nowhereman]

Jon Jones is not taking down Aaron Donald.

Of course he would. Jones would drop Donald to his knees with a leg kick and choke him out in a matter of seconds. Size only matters so much and it's not going to matter at all when you're up against a 6ft 4", 260lbs Gaidojutsu blackbelt.

 

[Machinehead]

Jon Jones is not taking down Aaron Donald.

He would do it blindfolded.

Like how good McDavid is at hockey, that's how good Jon Jones is at fighting.

 

[Ruggs225]

There's a lot wrong with this list, but 22nd isn't a bad spot at all for Crosby.

There's nobody ahead of him that I'm moving.

Simone biles… completely overrated.

She flopped and quit at tokyo. A top 10 athlete does not havr that type of disaster.

You didnt see michael phelps all of of a sudden start drowning bc he forgot how to swim.

She forgot how to land her routines, then used the mental wellness bs excuse.

Great athletes rise to the occasion and dont cop put and quit. They dont start crying and give up and claim mental wellness.

She is so god damn overrated its not even funny.

She shouldnt even be in the top 100.

And this list is just purely a joke with the ratings.

And how the hell did the WNBa get like 15 players on this list. And no female hockey players.

And no apollo anton ohno. And where is katie Morgan.

Well at least the purple headed idiot didnt make the list.

And we need some Bode Miller!

 

[Machinehead]

Simone biles… completely overrated.

She flopped and quit at tokyo. A top 10 athlete does not havr that type of disaster.

You didnt see michael phelps all of of a sudden start drowning bc he forgot how to swim.

She forgot how to land her routines, then used the mental wellness bs excuse.

Great athletes rise to the occasion and dont cop put and quit. They dont start crying and give up and claim mental wellness.

She is so god damn overrated its not even funny.

She shouldnt even be in the top 100.

And this list is just purely a joke with the ratings.

And how the hell did the WNBa get like 15 players on this list. And no female hockey players.

And no apollo anton ohno. And where is katie Morgan.

Well at least the purple headed idiot didnt make the list.

And we need some Bode Miller!

The thing with Simone Biles is, yes, she had that very disappointing Tokyo 2020 with all of the factors you mentioned, but with these "Olympic" sports, there tends to be a hyper-foucs on the Olympics. The Olympics are only one event, and only every four years.

Outside of the Olympics, Simone Biles is like something out of a video game. She has 23 World Championship golds and is a six-time all-around World Champion.

In the Olympics she was healthy for, she won four golds.

You could make the argument, and it's exceedingly difficult to compare these athletes in different sports, but I don't think that one Olympics is a fair representation of her resume at all.

 

[Else Ermine]

Yet it still generates almost 3x as much revenue as the Premiere League, the most popular soccer league in the world.

I googled NFL nationality and I'm reading that "in 2017 roughly 3% of active players were born outside of the United States", and there are around 1,700 players in it. Does that paint a picture of a globally popular sport?

Meanwhile FIFA estimate there are over 120,000 active professional soccer players and over 4,400 professional teams globally. The English Premier League has twenty of those teams, and each year three teams will be relegated from the Premier League and be replaced three teams from the tier below. England alone has 92 professional soccer teams.

You're comparing a sport that's almost entirely within its home nation and where all the talent and money is condensed into a 32 team closed league to a truly global sport. Regardless of which you prefer it's really not the same thing.

 

[John Mandalorian]

I googled NFL nationality and I'm reading that "in 2017 roughly 3% of active players were born outside of the United States", and there are around 1,700 players in it. Does that paint a picture of a globally popular sport?

Meanwhile FIFA estimate there are over 120,000 active professional soccer players and over 4,400 professional teams globally. The English Premier League has twenty of those teams, and each year three teams will be relegated from the Premier League and be replaced three teams from the tier below. England alone has 92 professional soccer teams.

You're comparing a sport that's almost entirely within its home nation and where all the talent and money is condensed into a 32 team closed league to a truly global sport. Regardless of which you prefer it's really not the same thing.

You can also look at this and say other global sports, track and field for example, are losing a lot of talent to the NFL.

Also, American football has its own competitive culture thats hard to replicate in other countries.

Your argument that its less valid because of a lack of participation from other countries, is very possibly more likely an issue of an extremely high barrier to entry.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

As soon as I heard this list was coming out from ESPN, I knew it would be heavily biased towards American athletes and American sports. Case in point, Annika Sorenstam who is arguably the most dominant female golfer of all-time finished in the eighties while a bunch of American female basketball players (and American athletes in general) who were not nearly as dominant in their respective sports finished noticeably higher.

Another example would be Marit Bjorgen who is probably the greatest female cross country skier of all time. Easily a top-50 athlete in the 2000s and more dominant than the American downhill skier who made the list.

 

[Else Ermine]

You can also look at this and say other global sports, track and field for example, are losing a lot of talent to the NFL.

Also, American football has its own competitive culture thats hard to replicate in other countries.

Your argument that its less valid because of a lack of participation from other countries, is very possibly more likely an issue of an extremely high barrier to entry.

I don't follow your first sentence. Are you referring to the NFL sucking up lots of the US's athletic talent because surely the same could be said of any popular sport, such as soccer?

I'm not suggesting football is any less valid than anything else here but I will argue that the NFL's revenue is a poor metric to use to assume the sport's popularity worldwide. On the topic of the thread/article the soccer talent pool is inarguably larger than that of American football and that is relevant here. It's a US network focused on US sports, and that's fine, but let's not pretend that leaning isn't skewing the whole thing massively.

 

[John Mandalorian]

I don't follow your first sentence. Are you referring to the NFL sucking up lots of the US's athletic talent because surely the same could be said of any popular sport, such as soccer?

I'm not suggesting football is any less valid than anything else here but I will argue that the NFL's revenue is a poor metric to use to assume the sport's popularity worldwide. On the topic of the thread/article the soccer talent pool is inarguably larger than that of American football and that is relevant here. It's a US network focused on US sports, and that's fine, but let's not pretend that leaning isn't skewing the whole thing massively.

American football has first dibs on the bulk of the talent pool in the US. Its not like some kid in France or Latvia is likely to start playing at 16 and find their way into the NFL. Not impossible but very unlikely. This makes the point you thought you were making about the 3% somewhat inconsequential.

The most populated country thats a soccer/football power is what? Brazil maybe? China's not a soccer/football power and the US isnt a football power. Those are two countries with very large populations that arent as dedicated tp soccer/football as much as many smaller countries. But its kind of comicsl to see people crow about soccer/football being more global in reference to American football because of a few large countries (population wise) then 40 countries the size of Latvia. Nice effort though.

To add:

Current Population

www.census.gov

Depending on your source, the 5 most populated countries in the world are as follows:

1. China
2. India
3. U.S.
4. Indonesia
5. Pakistan

Nigeria is 6. They're mostly competitive. Brazil is 7. Its the most populated country that one might legitimately consider a soccer/football power. Soccer/football is global when the five largest countries in the world an at least 3.5 million in population is standing on the sidines?