The Top 10 Most Popular Athletes on Twitter

The Top 10 Most Popular Athletes on Twitter

The biggest athlete in professional sports is also the biggest athlete on Twitter.

NBA star Shaquille O'Neal has the most followers of any athlete on the social media site, with over 3.5 million users reading his tweets. Brazilian soccer star Kaka is second on the list, more than 500,000 followers behind.

Though athletic success is a good yardstick in determining which men and women have the most followers, it's not as reliable an indicator as you'd think. For instance, Tiger Woods isn't in the top 10 but Chad Ochocinco is. (Tiger actually has fewer followers than fellow golfers Stewart Cink and Ian Poulter.) LeBron James cracks the list but comes in behind Reggie Bush. And of all the baseball players with accounts, one-time All-Star Nick Swisher is the most popular. (It doesn't hurt that he's on the New York Yankees.)

Here's the list of the top-10 athletes on Twitter, along with a sample tweet and a summary of their favorite subjects:

How NJ high schooler scored hottest viral video goal of 2011

Mike Criscitello had seen it executed in YouTube videos and attempted in hockey skills competitions for years: the sneaky shot in which a player lifts the puck off the ice and fires it lacrosse-style at a goaltender.

It was something the Edison High School (N.J.) senior had fooled around with in practice, to the point where his teammates anticipated Criscitello might try one himself during a game.