LeBron James named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People for fourth time

It's American made. Here in Europe the list would be totally different. America is huge but having influence over the whole of Europe is objectively more impressive and influencial in terms of population reach and the bridging of different cultures. Euroball is only popular in certain countries over here whereas football/tennis/golf/f1 dwarfs basketball. Social media numbers also don't translate well as a lot of European countries have different social media outlets on top of the twitters etc.

Saying that, LeBron is easily in that list but I think it's a little naive to ignore people like Federer as you mention. In Europe and worldwide everyone knows Federer/Schumacher/woods/Ronaldo. They are a lot more commonly known than LeBron worldwide.

Also the biggest sport in Africa is football which has a massive population and the sport is the only thing a lot of people have over there in terms of leisure.

Influence isn't based on giving back or being a voice although it's a huge component. Being outliers in your sport inspires greatness regardless of if you have a voice or not. These are people's heroes.

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