Add
Forbes magazine to the list of those who don't count NASCAR drivers as athletes. Or celebrities.
On Friday, the business magazine released
The World's Most Powerful Celebrities, its annual list of the world's most powerful--and best-paid--celebrities.
While former Formula One champion
Michael Schumacher and his successor
Kimi Raikkonen made the list, there's not a single NASCAR driver on the list. Granted, they have higher incomes, but ...
To generate the list,
Forbes "analyzes celebrity earnings, plus media metrics like Google hits, press mentions as compiled by Lexis/Nexis, TV/radio mentions from Factiva and the number of times an A-lister appears on the cover of 32 major consumer magazines."
I find it extremely difficult to believe that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was not among the celebrities topping the media metrics.
He made one of the biggest announcements in the sport's history this year and was reported in more mainstream news outlets than probably any NASCAR story since his father's death in 2001. There has been
no shortage of media coverage.
There was also the little matter of him announcing that he had this girl he was seeing back in January, which I can personally attest led to thousands of searches for "dale earnahrdt jr. girlfriend" that led inquirers to the
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Girlfriend category on
Answer this...Not to mention Junior's
estimated $20M annual income, which dwarfs several celeb on the list, including IRL driver
Danica Patrick, whose annual income
Forbes reports as $4M. Is it even comprehensible that she's on the list and Junior is not?
And the Food Network's "queen of southern cuisine and home-cooking" is on the list at #99.
Cooking with Paua Deen. Hmmmph. How about
Hallucinating with Forbes? I want some of what they're on.
What up,
Forbes?
Elsewhere in The FanhouseTiger Woods: I'm Number 2
ROME (AP) - Seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher is making a comeback for Ferrari to replace injured driver Felipe Massa.
