Dhoni in the most marketable league

New Delhi: Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and five-time world boxing champion MC Mary Kom are among the top 50 most marketable athletes in the world, according to British monthly SportsPro. While Dhoni finds himself in 16th spot, Mary is 38th by the magazine that reports on the business and financial aspects of sports.

SportsPro ranked athletes from the across the world on the basis of their marketing potential over the next three years and considered factors like age, home market, charisma, willingness to be marketed, crossover appeal and value for money.

Brazilian footballer Neymar tops the list followed by Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy, Barcelona and Argentina footballer Lionel Messi, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and Real Madrid and Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo.

World No. 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic and Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel are seventh and eighth respectively.

Mary is currently training in Pune for the London Olympics where she will compete in 51kg category.

Dhoni guided the Indian team to World Cup glory on home turf last year and was recently ranked 31st in Forbes’s list of the most highly-paid athletes.

Neymar, 20, is likely to feature at the upcoming London Olympics and is expected to be a major star when the World Cup is held in Brazil two years from now.

 The 2016 Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro.

“Neymar is very much the perfect storm: young, gifted and with an Olympics and a home World Cup on the horizon. He is already a superstar in Brazil, one of the world’s most robust economies and a vast market to boot,” SportsPro editor David Cushnan said.

“If you were a brand looking to make an impact in Brazil, he would certainly be the athlete you’d pick. Neymar is Brazil’s poster boy for its sporting decade.” Bolt topped the list in 2011 while National Basketball Association star LeBron James was No. 1 in 2010.

The list features seven football players, six each from basketball and tennis, five racing drivers, four golfers and four American football players. There are 19 Americans in the top 50, seven Britons and three each fromRussia and Brazil.

Woman golfer Yani Tseng is the highest-ranked of the eight women on the list in 10th place.

Notable absentees for the first time this year include global stars such as Wayne Rooney, Kobe Bryant and Fernando Alonso.

Tiger Woods, ranked third in the inaugural 2010 list, re-enters in 47th place after dropping out of the top 50 last year.

Global sports icons such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams and David Beckham did not find a place in the top 50 as the cost of an endorsement with them is likely to be at its peak, with its value on the wane.