How many World Cups did Brazil win before Pele?
Zero. Did Pele not win three World Cups? The Brazilian soccer team as global brand is due to its success, and Pele built that foundation. Argentina are probably a better team right now, but Argentina don’t sell 1/10th as many jerseys as Brazil does. Basketball is not the second largest sport in the world – last time I checked one quarter of the world’s population in South Asia was crazy about cricket and F1 is floating around there too – and this isn’t American society. People know who Jordan is, but they don’t know anything about him other than he played basketball. There’s not that many kids who wear his shoes though they are popular. Nike right now plugs Cristiano Ronaldo more than Michael Jordan. Anyway, I can think of somebody who is a lot bigger global sports icon than Jordan right now, definitely the undisputed number 1. His name hasn’t even been mentioned yet.
