Heptathlete ranked 28th in sports industry magazine SportsPro’s annual top-50 list

Katarina Johnson-Thompson has been listed as one of the world’s ‘most marketable’ athletes by leading sports industry magazine SportsPro.

Usain Bolt also features in SportsPro’s annual top-50 list, which includes a total of five track and field athletes.

The ranking takes into account potential to find a new sponsor over the next three years rather than current sponsorship value, with the magazine’s panel considering value for money, age, home market, charisma, willingness to be marketed and crossover appeal.

Jamaican sprinter Bolt topped the list in 2011 but this year was ranked fifth, as the top spot went to Formula One star Lewis Hamilton.

Bolt and British heptathlete Johnson-Thompson are joined in the top 50 by Brazilian Paralympic sprint champion Alan Oliveira at 20th, Paralympic long jumper Mami Sato of Japan at 34th and China’s world youth 100m champion Youxue Mo at 47th.

Last year Johnson-Thompson finished fifth in the heptathlon at the World Championships and became world junior champion in the long jump, while this winter the 21-year-old won long jump silver in the World Indoor Championships.

“Having seamlessly negotiated her transition into the sport’s senior ranks, talented heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson looks set to join her country’s long line of multi-event champions and become the new face of British athletics,” wrote SportsPro.

The magazine also noted how she has become the face of the new Nissan Micra advertising campaign and also has deals with Nike and SSE.

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