In honor of the new Lycos Sports site, we've just done a special survey of the Internet's 50 most searched athletes over the past year.
The #1 athlete, tennis diva Anna Kournikova, received a special award from Lycos yesterday at a Wimbledon press conference. (Video available soon on Lycos TV.) Curious about the other 49? Read on.
Active, retired and deceased athletes were eligible. Our tally included all searches for each athlete: Vince Carter, Vince Carter photos and Vince Carter dunks each counted as one search "vote" for the NBA star. Player product searches, such as Air Jordan shoes or Ben Hogan irons, were not tallied.
And now, the Lycos Sports 50:
Breaking down the athletes by category, you get:
10 Baseball
9 Basketball
7 Tennis
6 Soccer
3 Auto Racing
3 Boxing
3 Football
3 Skating
2 Golf
2 Hockey
1 Skateboard
1 Track
38 of the top 50 were men, 12 were women. 34 are still active, 10 are retired and 6 are deceased.
The deceased athletes are some of the most interesting entries. Who would have guessed that Jackie Robinson would still be in the top 10, or that Babe Ruth would beat Tiger Woods and Dale Earnhardt? Jesse Owens is obviously still an Olympic icon. The other three deceased -- Walter Payton, Payne Stewart and Wilt Chamberlain -- were heavily searched because they died in the past year.
We're also impressed by the strong showing of soccer, given that about 80% of all searches counted came from North America. Brandi Chastain is a wild card, of course, rising to #3 because she shucked her shirt on international TV during last summer's World Cup. (She was hot through last fall, but is far less searched in the last six months.) But David Beckham at #25? Ronaldo at #31? Those are big numbers.
Retirement didn't seem to hurt popularity, either. Michael Jordan is still at #2 two seasons after he hung up his $150 sneakers. Steffi Graf and Wayne Gretzky had famous retirements last year and both are well up on the list. And of course Pete Rose is the retiree who just won't go away.
Speaking of media figures, we left two former athletes off the list: OJ Simpson and Tonya Harding. Including them just didn't seem fair, since their fame now really has nothing to do with their athletic careers. For those wondering, Harding would have been in the top 10, Simpson somewhere in the 30s.
For more on athletes and sports news, we invite you to take a gander at Lycos Sports.
