Impossible question as if 10 of us were to vote on any one sport, i bet we wouldn't come up with many clear winners,let alone across every sport of all time.
Football : Maradona,Pele,Cruyff,Best etc etc
Swimming : Phelps ,Thorpe etc etc
F1 : Fangio,Senna,Clark etc etc
Boxing : Robinson,Ali,Marciano,Tyson etc etc
NFL : Montana,Rice,Peyton etc etc
You have people that have broken racial barriers in sport,you could argue thats one of the biggest things :Woods,Hamilton,Owens etc etc
Do you class darts as a major sport,Phil Taylor 15 times world champion ,never likely to be matched again.
It's still an interesting question though,do you discount someone who had a contraversial career on the grounds it's not sportsman like : Tyson,Ali,Maradona,
As I know nothing at all about basketball I couldn't comment on Michael Jordan.
For my two cents I'm going to go for Maradona,it's one of the most played sports in the world,by the most nations (roughly 220).He basicly won a world cup on his own.Won league and UEFA cups at an unfashionable club like Napoli.The guy was a genius on the pitch shame he wasn't off it as well.
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'agenda/question' and has no particular relevance.
