I thought I’d turn to Dopers to help answer this question I pondered over beers with friends recently. Facts or opinions are welcome.
**What is the “best” sport to make a career for an average player (not a superstar)?
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Specifically, if I was a crazy parent who obsessed on launching his son on a professional sports career trajectory, what sport should I put him into?
Some given parameters:
I define the “best sport” simply as the most lucrative, which I define as meaning the most money during an average career. This would be: [average money earned per year] X [average career length]. But if I missed something, I’m open to other suggestions for “best”. I’ve thought about the variation between the average and the maximum for a sport, but it seems to me that will complicate things somewhat.
He is (or will be) a decent enough athlete to make any pro sport he focuses on, since I will ruthlessly force him to train once I select a sport.
I’m considering sports from anywhere in the world, since perhaps cricket, or professional track and field or rugby or Aussie rules football is a better sports career than NASCAR or FIFA or NHL or MLB or NBA or PGA etc
For sports where there are multiple levels of “professionals”, he will be good enough to make the top level in the world or whatever country we move to in pursuit this insane obsession I have.
I’m not concerned about his short or long term mental well-being from all the ruthless training I’ll impose on him, so let’s not deduct the years of therapy he will need after his career is over. He’ll thank me in the end
I don’t want to factor in things like endorsement revenue, since I think he’ll be good enough to make a pro sport team, but not great enough to make money endorsing stuff.
I’ve kept this to male sports, because I also have a daughter who plays sports and I’m keenly aware at how female athletes get the shaft when it comes to career and success professionally. But that is a discussion for a different thread…
Taking the average salary times the average length of career gives $26.4 M for the NBA. An average MLB player would have a lifetime earning on $20.8 M. NHL players would have an average of $13.2 M while the average NFL player would only have $6.5 M.
Of course, assuming you could train you hypothetical son to do anything, perhaps training them to be an average quarterback could be a winning strategy, as quarterbacks tend to last longer and get paid higher.
What about the damage to his brain from repeated impacts? Even if he never gets a concussion, frequent impacts from tackling in American football or heading the ball in soccer can cause long term neurological damage.
I agree with golf. You can play for a really long career, no hard physical impacts, you get fame and endorsement deals, earn large, but still enjoy a very family friendly lifestyle, (no sudden trades to Detroit!). Also the sport itself seems largely controversy free. No uniform, no heavy pads, no team dynamic to navigate.
That’s a lot of upside, if you just want room to be you, I’d say!
I’m confused. From your terms, to get on the top level - the international circuit - they are by definition a superstar (at least within their sport).
Anyway, chess and snooker players seem to have long careers. I would not recommend Scrabble - I know a top-level player and Scrabble doesn’t pay. For a more physical career, I would suggest motorsport. There’s a lot more to motorsport than F1 and drivers are still active into their 50s and 60s.
Left-handed MLB pitcher. If he’s even halfway decent (by MLB standards), he’s almost guaranteed of a long career. And, even the middling players on a team make good money.
The downside, compared to some others that people have suggested, is that there is a non-zero injury risk, though it’s “tear up my elbow,” not “repeated head trauma.”
I was thinking baseball but the suggestions of golf sound convincing.
Baseball’s advantage is its strong minor league system. Even if you’re not playing in MLB you can still make a living in the minors. And baseball players have relatively long careers.
The problem I see with basketball and football are the careers are too short. But those two sports seem to have better college support so you might see better opportunities to shift into a coaching position after your playing career is over.
It’s unclear to me what “average” golf career means. Does that mean you qualify for each event and just make the cut? My (non-fan) perception of golf is that there are a lot of “pro” golfers that are just making a living and a handful that do really well.
If you are saying “median salary for median career length” then I think NBA or MLB has it. If you add in quality of life (nixing NFL and probably soccer) then I still think MLB or NBA, but golf moves up because you can keep playing as a senior or become a club pro somewhere.
Some more data here (although I can’t vouch for it’s accuracy and at least one of it’s charts seems to be labeled wrong): Sports Salaries
My understanding is that, unless you’re a top prospect (and under contract with the major league team), minor league salaries are very low, to the point that players in the lower levels of the minors frequently wind up living with host families as they don’t make enough money to actually live on.
Yeah the average minor league paycheck in the lowest level of play (A) is $1,300 a month. That works out to $15,600 a year. That’s barely above the poverty line for the US for a single individual (forget it if you have a family) and barely above the federal minimum wage (and below the state minimum wage in most states). That’s not something most people could or would want to try to live on.
Also, my numbers assume working 12 months straight which baseball players don’t do. So if your only source of income is baseball, you wouldn’t even be able to eat all year.
Kicker or punter in professional football would be pretty good I’d think- long careers, very low risk of injury, and relatively high pay.
Of course you have to get there first; is this poll taking into account relative difficulty of getting said pro sports career? I’d think that trying to be the kicker for one of 32 NFL teams is a lot harder than getting into the rotation as a lefty pitcher somewhere in the major leagues, or onto the PGA tour.
The problem with golf is you’re essentially running your own independent business, and if you don’t perform, you don’t get paid. The PGA tour is as pure a meritocracy as there is in professional sports; you earn more than everyone you beat, and everyone that beat you earns more than you did. And to even get onto the tour you have to be one of the top 125 players in the world, and you pay all of your own expenses. It costs somewhere between $75,000 and $110,000 or more, minimum, out of your own pocket, just to be on the tour. If you make the cut, you’re fine, but if you don’t, you move on with nothing.
Even a mediocre football or baseball player has a huge organization around them that fully provides medical support, athletic training, meals, travel, travel expenses, coaching, uniforms, etc. If you’re under contract you are 100% taken care of. You may never even see the field but if your teammates win, you still get to share in the glory.
The problem with golf is that endorsements aside, you have to win tournaments to make big money as it’s not a team sport (usually). In baseball, a very good to great pitcher can play 10 or more years on a crappy team making 20 million a year, all of it guaranteed whether the team wins or loses. And he would get all his money from a signed contract even if thee team cuts you.
If you’re among the very best ones, this is true. There are a handful of kickers and punters who are consistent, reliable, and enjoy long careers (e.g., Adam Vinatieri, Stephen Gostkowski, Shane Lechler, etc.). But, beyond them, the specialist positions often see a lot of turnover, and an awful lot of them actually wind up with fairly short careers.
