Shohei Ohtani has always been a bigger international star than LeBron James, says ex-Super Bowl champion

Super Bowl XXXVII winner Keyshawn Johnson believes that Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is a bigger international star than the legendary LeBron James .

Ohtani has redefined the game of baseball and is on the trajectory to be remembered as the greatest player in the history of the sport.

LeBron has achieved similar status in the NBA and is about to enter an unprecedented Year 24 in his career on a new team. However, James' star level in Year 24 is being questioned.

Keyshawn Johnson thinks Shohei Ohtani is a bigger star than LeBron James

Johnson appeared on 'All the Smoke' with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson , saying that Ohtani was LA's signature athlete when LeBron was still on the Lakers , while proclaiming Ohtani as a bigger international star than LeBron.

"When LeBron was here, it was still Ohtani. I would ask myself if Ohtani is a bigger international star than LeBron. I would think, yes. Ohtani won two championships for the Dodgers when LeBron was not winning championships."

Despite Ohtani's level of success in the MLB, the popularity of basketball as an international sport is much larger than baseball.

According to YouGov, the NBA has nearly 2.4 billion fans worldwide. There is no official estimate for the MLB because of its concentrated popularity in specific East Asian and Latin American markets.

Social media followers indicate that LeBron is decisively more popular, with 55.2 million followers on X and 154 million followers on Instagram.

Ohtani's social media impact is relatively minuscule, with just 10.7 million on Instagram and no official X account. There is no way to quantifiably say that Ohtani is a more popular sportsperson internationally than LeBron.

By virtue of the NBA's popularity, iconic stars like LeBron and Stephen Curry have to be considered bigger international sporting icons than even the most popular MLB star.

The MLB can claim to be a more popular league within North America than the NBA, but as an argument over what's popular internationally, the NBA and LeBron have a considerable edge.