The Sports Business Journal reports that Conor McGregor is the “most valuable athlete” on social media for 2017. Despite no UFC fights this year, his boxing match against Floyd Mayweather was a smash on PPV and the overall August event raked in $600 million per Showtime.
According to media analytics firm, MVPIndex, McGregor topped all other athletes who live or compete primarily in the U.S. in the company’s proprietary algorithm measuring reach, engagement and conversation.
Behind the UFC champion on the list were LeBron James at 2 and Stephen Curry.
The Dallas-based company estimated the monetary value of McGregor’s social media footprint for the year at $616 million based on the amount of impressions and engagement his content generated.
The company noted that it did not include pro wrestling or esports in the survey and if they did John Cena would have ranked 2nd behind McGregor.
Payout Perspective:
Many MMA fans already knew McGregor’s power on social media. In April 2016, his retirement tweet shattered twitter records with over 157,000 retweets. It scored hire than Kobe Bryant’s retirement tweet. For his part, McGregor has strategically used his social media to send cryptic info about his whereabouts and/or his next fights or just to poke fun at rivals. The use of social media has helped him remain relevant despite inactivity.
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