Ronaldo’s social media engagement generates $176 M for his sponsors

Cristiano Ronaldo’s five-year contract extension with Nike, worth $13 million a year is the most expensive athlete sponsorship deal in all of the soccer, and it is an absolute bargain for the $31 billion-in-sales sportswear giant.

According to a study of the top-paid athletes by Hookit, which tracks sponsorship value in social and digital media, Ronaldo generated $36 million in value for Nike on social media alone and a total of $176 million for all his partners from his promotional work on social platforms.

The three-time FIFA player of the year is the highest-paid athlete in the world at $88 million, including $32 million from endorsements. His partners are getting their money’s worth thanks to Ronaldo’s 215 million followers on social media across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, 60 percent more than any other athlete. Ronaldo became the first athlete with 200 million followers in February and has added 56 million over the past year. His 112 million Facebook fans are more than any other person on the planet.

All these figures convert into significant levels of interactions (likes, shares, comments or retweets) as Ronaldo uses social media liberally to promote his partner brands. Interactions for each of Ronaldo’s promoted posts—ones that included a hashtag or mention—averaged 651,778, according to Hookit.

The study also found out that the 100 highest-paid athletes generated a combined $371 million in media value on 6,230 posts that generated 358 million interactions. These numbers are important as marketers are looking at the social media profiles of celebrities more and more when identifying the right person to promote their brands.

“Guys who are doing Facebook and Instagram right are driving a lot of value there,” says Hookit co-founder Scott Tilton citing a Facebook post by golfer Rory McIlroy in March 2015 (outside our counting period). McIlroy offered to give away five pairs of custom headphones by his sponsor Bose ahead of the Masters tournament. The post generated 525,000 shares and $4 million in media value for Bose.

Hookit’s list of top 25 athletes by media value includes Messi, Neymar, Stephen Curry, Serena Williams, Bolt, Sharapova and Hamilton among others.

Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry ranks second with $23.6 million in media value. Curry became the face of the NBA over the past two seasons and his sponsors like Under Armour, Chase , Brita and Degree are reaping the benefits. Forty percent of Curry’s social media posts mention a brand, according to Hookit.

On the other hand, eleven of the highest-paid athletes do not have any social media presence, including brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, F1’s Sebastian Vettel and baseball’s top-paid pitcher Zack Greinke. “These athletes are not leveraging their star power enough,” says Tilton.

From brands’ perspective, Nike is the big winner. The company has an endorsement relationship with exactly half of the 100 highest-paid athletes, and it generated $57 million in media value from these stars over the last 12 months. Other brands that generated significant value include Adidas ($30 million), Tag Heuer ($11 million), Coca-Cola ($10 million) and Puma ($9.5 million).