Aryna Sabalenka has been named the world’s most marketable athlete in 2026, with the Belarusian tennis star topping SportsPro’s 17th annual list of the world’s 50 Most Marketable Athletes powered by NorthStar Solutions Group.
Sabalenka, 28, is a four-time Grand Slam champion who finished 2025 as the WTA Tour’s top-ranked player for the second consecutive season. She was estimated to have earned around US$30 million in 2025, split between tournament winnings and off-court income, including endorsement deals with global brands such as Nike, Wilson, Gucci, Emirates, Audemars Piguet, Whoop and Stella Artois.
Sabalenka becomes the fourth woman and third tennis player to top SportsPro’s ranking since its debut back in 2010. Rounding out the top five in this year’s list are Olympic freestyle skiing champion Eileen Gu, basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo, soccer star Erling Haaland, and tennis ace Carlos Alcaraz.
The 2026 edition of SportsPro’s 50 Most Marketable Athletes powered by NorthStar ranks athletes on a 100-point NorthStar Marketability Score built from three scoring pillars: Brand Equity (45 points), Momentum (40 points) and Commercial Trajectory (15 points). As such, the model reads three things together: the equity an athlete has built, the momentum behind it, and the room they still have to grow.
Behind the score sit 27 defined marketability drivers, informed by several hundred data points per athlete and more than 3,000 brand partnership records. In total, an expanded pool of 1,202 athletes across 70 sports were considered, using evidence from 1st July 2025 to 30th June 2026, with 247 assessed in full to determine the final ranking.
This year, women account for 16 athletes in the top 50, down from last year’s total of 20 and a peak of 23 in 2023. All told, 22 nationalities are represented, including nine in the top ten, with Americans leading the way with 16 athletes, ahead of India (5), Spain (4) and the UK (3).
Basketball is the best-represented sport with 13 athletes, followed by soccer (11), tennis (8), cricket (5), motorsport (3) and American football (3). The National Basketball Association has ten athletes in the list, more than any other league, while Washington Wizards forward AJ Dybantsa (#10) ranks as the most marketable teenage athlete.
At number six, American figure skater Alysa Liu is the highest new entry following her gold medal-winning exploits at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Brazilian skateboarder Rayssa Leal, ranked 48th, is the youngest athlete in the top 50 at 18 years old, while NBA legend LeBron James, who turns 42 in December, is the oldest.
“An athlete’s marketability reflects the strength of their brand, the momentum behind it and the opportunities to translate that into commercial value,” said Chris Collins, the founder, chief executive and president of NorthStar Solutions Group, whose assessment model has powered SportsPro’s list exclusively since 2022.
“Our work with SportsPro brings those dimensions together to help brands, athletes and their representatives make more informed partnership decisions. It also reflects the broader direction of NorthStar’s Sports Practice: connecting intelligence to the decisions and actions that create lasting value.
“The methodology powering this year’s list is an important foundation for the broader sports asset intelligence platform we are building.”