Who is the biggest global icon?

[LLcoleJ]

This might come as a shock to you, but after living in Africa and Europe (U.K) all my life, I don't know who Manny or Roger are and many people (most infact) in these places don't either. The shock you may get from knowing that is the same shock the rest of the world would get from knowing people have never heard of Messi. You really have to look at this with perspective. Tiger woods even has a better argument than the two of them though still not on the level of a Messi or Ronaldo.

You lived in the UK all your life and have never heard of Roger Feder ? And it's the Americans that have been living under a rock ?

Sorry, I didn't know you meant Federer. Most people know him as Federer or Roger federer so i thought you were talking about a baseball or football player named Roger

OH BAM.. nice one!

My bad: Roger Federerrerererererrrrr

[Kironte]

I think its pretty safe to say that most of than african population has never heard about Woods and know Messi day to day.

Any evidence or are you just going off some ignorant stereotype that all Africans live in hut tribes and call the tribal meeting every week to gather around the 10inch television from 1992 and watch the big Barca game come over their 1 channel? shame on you

no its mostly based on africans proven passion for soccer but nice try.

[Notas A3]

Kemba, you are such a troll that I'm not going to bother more about you in this thread. You don't know Messi, ok, I don't care, in a global perspective he is more well known than Tiger Woods, you wanna believe it? Ok, you don't want to believe it? It's ok for me. If someone wants to think that 2+2 is 5, and after explaining him that is 4, that guy keeps thinking and saying that is 5, is ok for me, that's not reality, but I don't care, I did what I could.

This might come as a shock to you, but after living in Africa and Europe (U.K) all my life, I don't know who Manny or Roger are and many people (most infact) in these places don't either. The shock you may get from knowing that is the same shock the rest of the world would get from knowing people have never heard of Messi. You really have to look at this with perspective. Tiger woods even has a better argument than the two of them though still not on the level of a Messi or Ronaldo.

You lived in the UK all your life and have never heard of Roger Feder ? And it's the Americans that have been
living under a rock ?

Do you write bad Federer on purpose or just happens that you don't know his last name? (I'm asking without malice because this is not the first time I read you calling him Roger Feder

Edit: You have explained yourself while I was writing.

[Notas A3]

I think its pretty safe to say that most of than african population has never heard about Woods and know Messi day to day.

Any evidence or are you just going off some ignorant stereotype that all Africans live in hut tribes and call the tribal meeting every week to gather around the 10inch television from 1992 and watch the big Barca game come over their 1 channel? shame on you

no its mostly based on africans proven passion for soccer but nice try.

Between the 500 hundreds replies there was a guy from Morocco and other from other African country who said that they didn't knew Tiger Woods and in their countries he was a totally unknown.

[LLcoleJ]

Kemba, you are such a troll that I'm not going to bother more about you in this thread. You don't know Messi, ok, I don't care, in a global perspective he is more well known than Tiger Woods, you wanna believe it? Ok, you don't want to believe it? It's ok for me. If someone wants to think that 2+2 is 5, and after explaining him that is 4, that guy keeps thinking and saying that is 5, is ok for me, that's not reality, but I don't care, I did what I could.

Please allow me to ask a different question. Outside of Soccer/Futbol what athlete/sport would you say most of the earths population would universally know?

When I say Tiger, Manny and Roger as options. Please note that these guys don't play in the US's top sports either.

Golf and Tennis are kind of marginal here with their niche followings. Boxing is on life support in the US with MMA fast tracking it.

[Avice]

I would say after football it's either Bolt, or F1 racers. And as someone living in Southeast Asia, I must say I have never saw or heard about Manny. I only know about him from this thread.

[Notas A3]

Please allow me to ask a different question. Outside of Soccer/Futbol what athlete/sport would you say most of the earths population would universally know?

When I say Tiger, Manny and Roger as options. Please note that these guys don't play in the US's top sports either.

Golf and Tennis are kind of marginal here with their niche followings. Boxing is on life support in the US with MMA fast tracking it.

Of course you can ask, and we can make a thread about this. For me, as a Spanish guy, living in Europe and given my context, I think that Roger is more known worldwide or at least in more countries, he is the best tennis player ever, also Tennis is more followed than Boxing and Golf, here, my sample is smaller than while talking about football, because I'm only taking into account this thread ( viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1204305 ) and what people is saying about sport in their countries.

The three of them are the greatest or one of the greatest of their sport, I don't know anything about Pacquiao to have an opnion, I do know Tiger Woods, but I most know him because of his affairs instead of his athletic performance, and his off court performance is everything but iconic for me. So I base my opinion in population that may know the three of them.

In reality, I can't say that I have a strong opinion or an opinion that I wouldn't change, like the Messi/Ronaldo one, and if someone comes here and say that Boxing is more followed than Tennis and Golf or Golf is the most followed, I would change my opinion.

Maybe you could put Michael Schumacher or Valentino Rossi in that list because they are both active (while close to the end of their careers, they are like Michael Jordan on the Wizards) and are the greatest of their sports and are relevant sports in Europe, part of Asia, part of the Arab Countries and I think that in Australia they also know these guys. But they are an step lower and I don't know their fame in the USA so, here again, I don't have a strong opinion, but in my fishbowl (ha), they are or can be in that list.

[Don Draper]

I'm Nigerian American and I can assure you most Nigerians don't know who Tiger Woods is. Kobe Bryant is probably more popular in Nigeria than woods and neither of them are even close to Messi, Ronaldo, or Beckham.

[LLcoleJ]

In reality, I can't say that I have a strong opinion or an opinion that I wouldn't change, like the Messi/Ronaldo one, and if someone comes here and say that Boxing is more followed than Tennis and Golf or Golf is the most followed, I would change my opinion.

Maybe you could put Michael Schumacher or Valentino Rossi in that list because they are both active (while close to the end of their careers) and are the greatest of their sports and are relevant sports in Europe.

fair enough. And the reality is, I am not trying to change anyone's opinion here. I absolutely believe that Messi/ronaldo are the most popular athletes in the world given how popular futbol is around the world.

My only point is that if Messi is a 95% "Global Icon" than maybe a true Global Iconic athlete doesn't actually exist. Personally, I don't think that takes anything away from them and how huge they are around the world.

As I pointed out earlier.. Madonna is a Global Icon. I can't stand her and I think her music sucks. But that doesn't change her universal appeal to everyone.

Beckham is not one of the greatest footballer every to play, but I would say everyone knows who he is.

[hype_2004]

This is Usain Bolt easily, after China and London this guy's face is recognizable the world over, you probably have some obscure tribe in Papua new Guinea, Africa or some village in China that recognizes his face, you can bet money on that.

[KembaWalker]

how am I a troll? everyone here seems to know people that (they think) have never heard of Tiger Woods while they themselves obviously have. don't get mad at me because I just wanna see it. shouldnt be that hard to start a thread on a soccer forum is it?

[Meeks]

how am I a troll? everyone here seems to know people that (they think) have never heard of Tiger Woods while they themselves obviously have. don't get mad at me because I just wanna see it. shouldnt be that hard to start a thread on a soccer forum is it?

just stop man, seriously. u win. Earth loses.

[Don Draper]

how am I a troll?

This is how:

lol @ the insecure Euro kids in this thread

Stop being fanboys and actually think please...the lack of rationality in this thread is rustling my jimmies like crazy. Good job Messi trolls..lol

if the rest of the world posts like this, thank god I live in the USA fishbowl

[hype_2004]

Again gets this over 2 billion people tuned in to watched Usain Bolt capture the 100 meter gold medal in London, Imean 2 frickin billion people, how's that for global awareness?

[KembaWalker]

how am I a troll?

This is how:

lol @ the insecure Euro kids in this thread

Stop being fanboys and actually think please...the lack of rationality in this thread is rustling my jimmies like crazy. Good job Messi trolls..lol

if the rest of the world posts like this, thank god I live in the USA fishbowl

lmao I'm the only one here with an argument backed up by anything real. I'm the one getting trolled. and hard

[cantervil]

how am I a troll?

This is how:

lol @ the insecure Euro kids in this thread

Stop being fanboys and actually think please...the lack of rationality in this thread is rustling my jimmies like crazy. Good job Messi trolls..lol

if the rest of the world posts like this, thank god I live in the USA fishbowl

lmao I'm the only one here with an argument backed up by anything real. I'm the one getting trolled. and hard

Something real? You are asking evidence... now you show us some evidence. Show us for example that Tiger Woods is really popular in Africa and a big % of Africans know him?

Find please at least 400 million signatures from African people that they know Tiger.

Or at least tell me your argument.

[cantervil]

Again gets this over 2 billion people tuned in to watched Usain Bolt capture the 100 meter gold medal in London, Imean 2 frickin billion people, how's that for global awareness?

That is an argument.

[Notas A3]

Again gets this over 2 billion people tuned in to watched Usain Bolt capture the 100 meter gold medal in London, Imean 2 frickin billion people, how's that for global awareness?

That's a good argument, if you can put the statistics or the source it would be great, but I think your numbers are reliable. Well, the only thing that I can say in favor of Messi is that the sum of the people who knows him can be just as big or bigger, in South America and Central America, he is more than well known, in the whole Europe, or most part of it he is very very well known, he is very well known in Africa (as some posters from there have stated) and he is also very well known in the Middle East, in Asia he is known by a ton of people in China and other countries and he is not well known in USA, Canada or Australia. Statistically, you can put a number and I can't, so with Bolt I can have doubts.

[markjay]

Again gets this over 2 billion people tuned in to watched Usain Bolt capture the 100 meter gold medal in London, Imean 2 frickin billion people, how's that for global awareness?

That is an argument.

Google search results:

"Kobe Bryant" (2,430,000) vs. "Usain Bolt" (141,000)
Kobe (10,700,000) vs. Usain (2,320,000)

That's another argument

[hype_2004]

Again gets this over 2 billion people tuned in to watched Usain Bolt capture the 100 meter gold medal in London, Imean 2 frickin billion people, how's that for global awareness?

That's a good argument, if you can put the statistics or the source it would be great, but I think your numbers are reliable. Well, the only thing that I can say in favor of Messi is that the sum of the people who knows him can be just as big or bigger, in South America and Central America, he is more than well known, in the whole Europe, or most part of it he is very very well known, he is very well known in Africa (as some posters from there have stated) and he is also very well known in the Middle East, in Asia he is known by a ton of people in China and other countries and he is not well known in USA, Canada or Australia. Statistically, you can put a number and I can't, so with Bolt I can have doubts.

Soccer is popular worldwide due to it's easy playability, all you need is a ball and a net to kick around, but how many people on this planet dream of being the fastest to ever live? rest my case.