But your average fan takes a bit more convincing of a player's greatness than hacks using nouns as adjectives to describe their perceived status.

Few, if any, of these so-called superstars, living legends or icons could sell out a stadium with six-pack carrying punters or pack a golf course with camera-clicking, mobile-phone toting spectators.

Michael Jordan could do it, sure, and, as witnessed last week in Australia and Taiwan, so can Brazilian footballer Ronaldo and Amerasian golfer Tiger Woods.

What Jordan, Ronaldo and Woods have in common, apart from their innate talent, is a juggernaut of a marketing machine behind them and a Just Do It philosophy courtesy of Nike.

Ronaldo and Woods are becoming cult figures and that, as the American and Chinese governments will testify, can be very dangerous.

The press in Sydney and Taipei were in a frenzy as Ronaldo and Woods jetted into those respective cities. The fact that Ronaldo jetted out again in a bizarre 'hello, goodbye' scenario, without kicking a ball, only added to his appeal with the soccer sect.

Organisers, and sponsor Nike, announced that they would offer refunds to all 40,000 people who had bought tickets for the match between the Brazil Olympic side and Australia in Sydney.

Fair dues to the promoters for that gesture but it added to Ronaldo's status as a cult figure. The refund decision underlined that the two-match series had been hyped to the heights by the use of a simple but effective seven letter name - Ronaldo.

While the spat between Ronaldo's club side Inter Milan and Brazilian coach Wanderley Luxemburgo was childish to say the least - the Italian club demanded that Ronaldo play just one of the two exhibition matches and Luxemburgo insisted on 'two or nothing' - it had the effect of scuppering the sponsorship ship Ronaldo.

Without the star name, the whole exercise of bringing the Brazilian Olympic team Down Under was for nothing. The price of all those smashed eggs in that one basket was around US$2 million.

Woods did not have any contractual problems but, as with Ronaldo, the whole tournament in Taiwan was promoted around him. Even with tree-toppers like Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh and Nick Faldo in the field, everyone wanted to see the Woods.

Tigermania had been whipped up well before he won four events in a row, making his first visit to an island which, for well documented political reasons, does not check in many celebrities, a near apocalyptic happening.

He was duly mobbed at the airport, half blinded by camera flashlights at his hotel and interrogated by a hungry media pack at a press conference that went out live on eight television channels. Hello, Taiwan! Tiger is great at what he does but he is still only a golfer.

Turning him and Ronaldo into cult figures is bad for sport and, ultimately, bad for business.