OT: Most influential U.S. athlete of the past 25 years?

[Windham4th]

Even though Jordan hasn't played in over 20 years he's the most influential. He globalized the entire sport and completely changed sports marketing forever. His cultural impact is enormous to this day.

Nike was a running company that sold waffle racers before they signed Jordan. Fast forward to today and Jordan's outsell Lebron, Durant, and Curry combined something like 10 to 1.

Yeah but most of that happened more than 25 years ago

 

[Windham4th]

What about Ed O'Bannon? He changed college athletics completely

 

[Chin Diesel]

Some predictably horribly bad takes. An AI response? Steph Curry? Lebron?

Money talks. Everything else walks.

It's MJ or Tiger and everything else is a distant third.

 

[storrsroars]

Here's one Lance Armstrong. Think whatever you want you can call him a cheater and/or a scumbag but he's the reason you see cyclists on the road and why roads have added bike lanes.