Football star Cristiano Ronaldo became the first person to reach the 600-million followers mark on Instagram. He was also named Instagram's top earner for the third year in a row. The Portugal striker, 38, was also the first person to reach the 300-million mark on the platform.
Ronaldo, who in July was ranked as the world's highest-paid athlete by Forbes for the first time since 2017 following his move to Saudi Arabia, has topped the 2023 Instagram Rich List, a global marker of online influence.
The list, compiled by Instagram scheduling tool Hopper HQ, is based on internal and publicly available data on how much each user can charge for a post on Instagram and YouTube.
The Portugal forward brings in a massive $3.23 million per Instagram post, according to Hopper HQ, as he nears 600 million followers on the social media platform.
To little surprise, Ronaldo's closest rival on the list is Lionel Messi, with the Argentina World Cup winner attracting almost $2.6 million for each post.
This puts the two football giants ahead of not only every other sports star but also celebrities such as singer and actress Selena Gomez, reality star and make-up mogul Kylie Jenner and actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.
Only two other athletes - Indian cricketer Virat Kohli and Brazilian footballer Neymar - made it to the Top 20.
Neymar brings in almost double the amount that his Paris St Germain team mate Kylian Mbappe does per post.
In June, Cristiano Ronaldo became the first men's player to make 200 international appearances and celebrated the milestone by scoring the winning goal in the 89th minute as Portugal beat Iceland in European Championship qualifying.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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