The Irish public has voted Katie Taylor as their most admired sporting star of 2021, the fifth year in a row she has been so acclaimed.
In fact, she has added to her lustre in the annual ONSIDE Star Track Survey, climbing four per cent to 25 per cent in terms of the proportion of the vote she gained from interviews with 1,000 adults across the Republic of Ireland.
A harking for past glories may explain Brian O’Driscoll and Roy Keane taking second and third place while there is a more present and future feel to Kellie Harrington cracking the Top Ten for the first time in fourth place.
Shane Lowry rounds out the top five, climbing two places from last year.
“The potential power of sports personalities in Irish society today is evidenced in the fact that 8 in 10 adults have a sports star they admire most,” said ONSIDE CEO John Trainor.
“This is reasonably well balanced across demographic divides, with for example 3 in 4 Irish females having a sports star they look up to, compared with 86 per cent of males – with young Irish adults aged 18-24 being most impressed by Ireland’s sports idols.”
Taylor returns to the ring on December 11th to defend her undisputed lightweight boxing title, ahead of a box office fight with Amanda Serrano in New York next spring which could earn her over $1m.
The Star Track survey is part of what ONSIDE offers in terms of helping brands decide on whether or not a brand ambassador is important to their activation.
“The right data helps make a good business case for the effective use of sports personality marketing,” added Trainor.
“Our research helps businesses like Aldi and Bank of Ireland to be regarded as brands that have aligned themselves best with individual Irish sports personalities in the past year.”
“Aldi’s alignment with top 10 most admired star Paul O’Connell via their ‘Home’ cookbook and their charity Christmas campaign to raise funds for Barnardos is a role model that is registering highly with the hearts and minds of the Irish public.”
Other businesses uncovered by ONSIDE as Top 10 leaders in the use of sports personality endorsement in the hearts and minds of the Irish public included retailers Lidl, Mace and Centra, telcos Vodafone and Three, drinks brands Guinness and Lucozade Sport and Aviva.
Outside of sport, the survey also found that while Ryan Tubridy and Claire Byrne retained their top two status as the most admired male and female television or radio personalities in Ireland this year, Tommy Tiernan’s mystery guest format show on RTE made a big impression on Irish audiences as the chat show host broke into the Top 5 this year for the first time.
Sport for Business Perspective
Sports stars are becoming more aware of their power as ambassadors, both in an advocacy fashion but also in commercial terms. Knowing who works best should be an objective rather than a subjective decision and this survey can be an important part of that.
“A powerful and influential network of information and collaboration”
Download our latest membership brochure here.
Sport for Business Partners
