The American sports network ESPN’s list of the Top 100 professional athletes of the 21st Century may or may not get it right with most athletes, but it’s dead wrong when it comes to its low ranking of Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid. ESPN has McDavid ranked 98th out of 100 athletes. He’s just ahead of football player Ed Reed, and just behind cricket star Virat Kohli.
He’s also behind baseball pitcher Pedro Martinez, ranked 92nd, WNBA basketball star A’ja Wilson, 90th, NBA star Kawhi Leonard, 85th, WNBA player Lauren Jackson, 84th, WNBAer Sheryl Swoopes, 81st, MMA fighter George St. Pierre, 76th, WNBAer Lisa Leslie, 74th, WNBAer Candace Parker, 60th, NHLer Alex Ovechkin, 54th, NBAer Steve Nash, 51st, WNBAer Maya Moore, 36th, and WNBAer Tamika Catchings, 34th.
The top 25 will be announced on Thursday, no doubt including Sidney Crosby and a host of WNBA players.
That is two NHL players in the ESPN Top 100 so far, McDavid and Oveckin, and seven WNBA players.
Fascinating!
Who knew that a relatively obscure professional league in the United States (can you name one championship team?) would have so much more representation on the ESPN list than the NHL? It’s almost like ESPN has had some long-standing vested interest in the WNBA (ESPN has broadcast WNBA since the league was founded in 1996).
How did ESPN create its list? “Experts in individual sports were asked to vote to rank the top athletes in their sport since Jan. 1, 2000 (no accomplishments before this date were to be considered). Those votes pared down pools in each sport to lists of 10 to 25 athletes each, which constituted the overall candidate pool for the top athletes of the 21st century so far. Each voter was presented two randomly selected names and asked to pick which one has had the better career in the 21st century. Across repeated, randomized head-to-head matchups, more than 70,000 votes were cast at this stage, and using an Elo rating system, the list was pared down from 262 to 100. That list was then evaluated by a panel of experts for any inconsistencies or oversights, resulting in the top 100 ranking seen here.”
