ESPN thought it was wise to rank the top 100 athletes 24 years into the 21st century, and if the goal was to elicit debate, that was successful.
There were over 70,000 votes from ESPN contributors and each athlete’s accomplishments from this century were looked at and ranked to fill out the list. There wasn’t much else to explain the order of which each athlete was ranked.
Michael Phelps earned No. 1 billing for his 23 Olympic gold medals, and 23-time major champion Serena Williams earned the No. 2 spot. Lionel Messi and LeBron James took No. 3 and No. 4, respectitvely. And New England Patriots Hall of Famer Tom Brady rounded out the top five.
ESPN’s Mike Reiss wrote a summation of the career of the seven-time Super Bowl champion highlighting a Bill Belichick quote where the former Patriots head coach called Brady “the ultimate winner.”
Again, there really wasn’t a large breakdown of why Brady was lower than individual athletes like Phelps or Williams nor was there explanation of why the three-time NFL MVP was higher than athletes like Simone Biles or Tiger Woods.
We were just a quarter into the century when ESPN released this list, so one would think this changes when we get to the halfway point of the century.
Was Brady too high or too low on the list of top pro athletes of the 21st century? Sound off in the comments.
