You do a deal with the devil by which (in return for your mortal soul, natch) he will grant you huge natural talent at a sport. He only gives you the basic talents: you still have to train and contest normally. What sport will give you the best cost/benefit ratio?
I’ve deliberately left aspects of the question open for interpretation, but I’ll give some examples to show you the lines upon which I am thinking.
Professional cycling: terrible. Long, long hours in the saddle day after day training. Long, long races pushing through the pain barrier. Money ordinary. Fame limited. Scenery fabulous. Crashes painful. Career length: OK I guess. Probably finish up around early thirties. Post career benefits: moderate.
Football (soccer): maybe OK. Money astonishing. Matches pretty short really (1/2 day). Training probably not that onerous. Team sport, so you have to be someone who doesn’t mind being locked into a group effort with rules surrounding behaviour etc. Career length: OK I guess. Post career benefits: moderate.
Motor racing: maybe OK. Money very good at high levels (F1 say) but I suspect the number of spots at the top small and the money drops of drastically as you go down. Personal danger high. You can still lose due to your car no matter how talented you are. Not at all sure how much practice you have to put in. I understand the hours of testing can be onerous.
Golf: the best maybe? Money extremely good if you are winning and famous. A talent sport rather than an endurance sport, so if you have the talent you can probably minimise training. Individual, so you can enter as many or as few tournaments as you like. Long, long career and a big (and lucrative?) veterans circuit if you want, after that. Easy on the body. Good chance of getting though your career without ever being in a cast or having surgical intervention. The propriety and snobbishness surrounding golf would drive me mad, and I think other sports may have groupies that would be more fun.
Bowling might be a good choice. Extremely safe, or at least I’ve never heard of a bowling-related fatality. A game consists of 12 to 21 throws, with a tournament being maybe six games and the prizes are pretty good at the PBA level. Get $50,000 for a weekend’s “work”… not bad. And you can play for decades.
I don’t think you have to look any further than John Daly to choose golf. He was an obese chain smoking alcoholic and still managed to win tournaments including a couple of majors. He’s my hero. I doubt he’s jogged a mile in his life.
Which one gets the hottest women? The money’s not really going to be that much different between say golf and baseball, but I bet ballplayers get hotter women on average.
Having now checked out Sports Illustrated’s Top 50 (and international Top 20) when it comes to money the sport that has to be discussed that I haven’t yet is NBA. What’s the day to day working life and overall career of an NBA player like?
I don’t want this just to be a money thing, though. What about lifestyle? What’s it like to be a pro surfer, say?
I’m ruling out boxing, football, and hockey. Pain hurts.
Basketball - You have to be tall to be a star. And have you ever seen a really tall guy in his sixties?
Auto racing - stay away from any sport where your first injury can kill you. Plus you have to piss in your pants.
Minor sports - I ain’t playing for the love of the game. I want fame and women and money.
Tennis - You can be a star in this sport but only if you’re a woman.
Baseball - good longevity, minimal injuries, nice popularity. Would be a strong contender except for:
Golf - The gold pot at the end of the rainbow. If you’ve got the talent it’s the perfect sport. Big prizes, big endorsements, fame, nice working conditions, no injuries, and you can keep playing it forever.
Surely the answer is darts, even the professionals are sucking down beers while “playing” in major events. Half of them look like walking cardiac arrests and Aussie Tony David who won the World Title in 2002 is an invalid pensioner.
I think i’d choose baseball. And i’d choose to be a starting pitcher.
Big money, lots of glory (at least when you play well), and you only have to play every fourth or fifth day. And i’d like to play in the National League, where i also get a chance to bat. My ultimate baseball fantasy would be to hit a home run, and pitch a no-hitter to win the game 1-0.
The possibility of long-term damage, or chronic pain, to your arm would be a downside, but a risk i’m willing to take. Post-career, there’s managing, or making the journey to the broadcast booth. But i’d probably just take my money and walk away.
I’ve played golf a little bit (although i’m woeful at it), and it just doesn’t appeal to me in this hypothetical, even though the physical strain is minimal and the money is good. I want a team sport, played in a stadium, for the roar of the crowd.
Golf doesn’t get many good groupies because golfers are usually boring, ugly, fat, and old. If it were ME out there, I would be the Bad Boy of golf, this young handsome dynamo, and the ladies would flock. Plus you don’t have to hang out with golfers. Once you get famous, you know other famous people, so you can make friends with musicians and (real) athletes and get to know their groupies as well.
No, but there are plenty of short guys in their sixties.
A top jockey has maybe the greatest longevity of career in any sport bar golf. Willie Shoemaker rode his last winner at the age of 58 and many others continue riding into their 50s. If you retire on a Tuesday you can start as a trainer on Wednesday so there’s no problem with a second career and you carry on until you die. It’s pretty well-paid with income streams from prize money, retainers, endorsements and sometimes a share in a stallion or two. You’ll suffocate under a pile of delicious women wanting to mother you.
Downside to jockeying is that its a wee man’s game. If you’re at all approaching medium-sized then you’ll need to be on a diet for all of your professional life - no fun. So you’ve got the money, you’ve got the massive longevity, you’ve even got the thrill of de-frauding honest God-fearing punters by being a crooked cheating bastid; but at the end of the day who wants to be a short man?
Has anyone said poker yet? Then, Poker. A $10,000 entry fee can return dividends in the millions. Make two or three final tables a year in major tournaments and your bankroll is set. Career longevity is enormous (Doyle Brunson’s somewhere in his fifth or sixth decade). Post-career benefits: no such thing as post-career if you don’t want there to be. Endorsements in the US aren’t as lucrative as they used to be but there’s still sponsorship money to be had.
That may sound snippy but I meant it literally. I don’t watch golf or basketball or baseball or NASCAR but I’ve heard of athletes currently playing in all of these sports - they’re famous enough that they’re known to people outside of the sport. But tennis? The only current tennis players I know by name are all women.
Tiger Woods and Maria Sharapova are famous. Roger Federer is somebody I never heard of until just now when I looked him up on Google.
