Power Play: Brees, Rodgers, Brady Top Sports Power 100

One of the age-old comparisons in sport is who is better: Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle, Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux, Joe Montana or Dan Marino and on and on and on. It is hard to find the right comparison because many times, you are mixing apples and oranges, and when it comes to team sports vs. individual sports, the weighing of on-field value can also depend not only on the individual, but on those around him or her as well.

Then you factor in the complete picture—social media, endorsements, public appearances, market size—and the comparison of who can be the ultimate athlete really can become a maddening debate.

But the folks at Bloomberg Businessweek, along with Harrow Sports Ventures, have tried to solve that issue by taking analytics and applying those numbers to the value of an athletes on and off the field. The result is the Power 100, a ranking of the top athletes from around the world, which was released on Wednesday night.

BBW worked with CSE Analytics to evaluate more than 3,000 athletes across a variety of sports, with 50 percent based on "off-field" measurements and 50 percent on "on-field" performance. CSE's proprietary analytics utilizes a range of industry statistics, including data from Nielsen's E-Poll as well.

As for the results, if you are a fan of the NFL, you will be very happy. If you like hockey of fight sports, maybe not so much.

The NFL dominated the list with 26 players, including the three top spots going to Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, all of whom have married their success on the field with a vibrant off-field persona as well. None are brash or in-your-face, but they are successful, respected and an endorser's dream.

Also a bit of a surprise is the presence of three ATP stars in the top 10—Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic—giving rise to the notion that the impact tennis players, at least on the men's side, have with brands may be higher than what many casual fans think.

The only fading face amongst the top? Shaquille O'Neal, whose No. 8 spot is still probably more based on his marketing persona than his play at the end of an illustrious career that ended in retirement last summer (retired athletes are not included, but O'Neal made the cut since he did play all of last year).

Other surprises? No UFC fighters on the list despite their growing appeal in the male demo and their passionate following, and no women higher than Serena Williams at 28. Olympic athletes didn't fare that well in a non-Olympic year, but we can probably expect to see a jump from people like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt as London approaches.

The Power 100 rankings also emphasized the importance of team sports, with the NFL's 26 players ranked in the top 100. The National Basketball Association came in second with the most athletes on the Power 100, with 20 (led by LeBron James at four), followed by MLB baseball (16), tennis (10), golf (eight), motorsports (six), Olympics (four), soccer (four), hockey (three), boxing (two) and action sports (one).

What does the list mean? It's a good litmus test for marketers to see how powerful athletes can be, and it also shows that winning on the field, in the board room and with fans in the social space are all needed these days to make those who play the game as successful as they can be in a global economy.