How hard is it to reach the "majors" in each professional sport

Although I hate the NBA I think it's gotta be toughest simply based on the number of kids out there playing basketball in college at a fairly elite level and the small size of the pro teams--how many players does an NBA team carry compared to an MLB team, to say nothing of an NFL team?

MLS is not a "major" league.

Golf and NASCAR are not sports.

It is utterly impossible to make it to the "majors" in a any popular sport unless you are genetically endowed with extremely rare physical gifts. Even in golf, most people would never have a prayer to make the PGA tour no matter how hard they practiced, because their nervous systems simply aren't advanced enough. You have more of a chance in less competitive sports. UFC is still young, and participation in MMa not very high, so guys who are less than gifted are still able to make it to the top. That will change as the sport grows in popularity.

NBA - There just aren't that many spots and everyone plays growing up.MLB - A lot more spots are available than in baseballNFL - Most spots but a ton of competition.PGA - Not a ton of spots (~150 total) but the competition pool isn't as deep. What percentage of kids have the opportunity to play golf for a couple hours a day?NHL - The competition pool is relatively deep but that is a result of russian and canadian skaters not US one. MLS - its like minor league baseball. If you were good, you would be in europe. It is probably harder to make than the NHL but I can't in good conscience list a minor league any higher.NASCAR - weak competition pool. 99% of the people never give it a shot.

whonamestheirkidgerman? wrote:

This is not referring to any kind of "minor" league.

Rate them.

Mine:

MLB

NBA

PGA

NFL

NHL

MLS

NASCAR

I don't intend this to be about how hard it is to play that given sport. Rather think of it this way: if there was an equally average athlete from each sport listed above, which would have the hardest time getting to the "majors"?

I didn't include sports where it is difficult to label the top level (Track, tennis, etc..).

Golf is the only sport on the above list that most people would have a shot at. The amount of practice required to reach the top in Golf though is insane by any measure. If your not spending a couple hours putting a day and then doing another couple of short game work in your teen years, you pretty much have zero shot of making it to the top. It is hard to say how good the average golfer would be if they could spend 2000 hours a year practicing for 5 years. I am betting it is a lot closer to PGA level than someone trying the same things in pretty much any other sport.

Rational Economics wrote:

It is utterly impossible to make it to the "majors" in a any popular sport unless you are genetically endowed with extremely rare physical gifts. Even in golf, most people would never have a prayer to make the PGA tour no matter how hard they practiced, because their nervous systems simply aren't advanced enough. You have more of a chance in less competitive sports. UFC is still young, and participation in MMa not very high, so guys who are less than gifted are still able to make it to the top. That will change as the sport grows in popularity.

asdfasdfas wrote:

Golf is the only sport on the above list that most people would have a shot at. The amount of practice required to reach the top in Golf though is insane by any measure. If your not spending a couple hours putting a day and then doing another couple of short game work in your teen years, you pretty much have zero shot of making it to the top. It is hard to say how good the average golfer would be if they could spend 2000 hours a year practicing for 5 years. I am betting it is a lot closer to PGA level than someone trying the same things in pretty much any other sport.

You are crazy if you think the average man has the potential to play professional golf if he works hard enough. Those guys have superhuman command over the path of the ball because their nervous systems are attuend to extremely subtle details of movement and positioning. No way the average man can do it.

Rational Economics wrote:

It is utterly impossible to make it to the "majors" in a any popular sport unless you are genetically endowed with extremely rare physical gifts. Even in golf, most people would never have a prayer to make the PGA tour no matter how hard they practiced, because their nervous systems simply aren't advanced enough.

I don't think that is the case. I live in a pretty rural area and we have had a very good Major leaguer, a very good golfer, and a decent NBA'er (short career). The golfer grew up in a family that owned a small golf course and practiced from a very young age. Baseballer was a big farmboy who could throw 94 mph. Not even drafted out of high school but got noticed at a small d3 school. Basketballer was a 6'8" who got to the nba by rebounding. Only the 6'8" kid was really out of the ordinary because we don't have that many kids that tall. We have had a couple 7 footers that played college but didn't get to the nba.

MLB, NFL, NHL condone PED use and are not considered sports by the American public.

NASCAR is not athletics.

PGA is not athletics.

Of the ones you mentioned I'd guess golf and NASCAR are the easiest. You have to be rich as Croesus to get into golf, and you have to be part of a certain segment of society to get into NASCAR, so the talent pool is going to be less in those two.

There are a lot of pro golfers that came from very modest backgrounds. It's more about having access to facilities to practice and play, and sometimes that isn't all that expensive.

In the end, like any sport, you have to be an unbelievably gifted golfer to be able to sniff a professional tour of any kind. My brother is a club pro in Orlando with a plus-handicap (better than scratch) and he has played rounds with guys ranging from the Hooters Tour to the PGA/European Tours. Even at his skill level, there is a huge difference between my brother and the guys who make a living at it. He can hang with them every so often, but those guys hang up 65s in practice rounds like its no big deal.

atownrunnin wrote:

There are a lot of pro golfers that came from very modest backgrounds. It's more about having access to facilities to practice and play, and sometimes that isn't all that expensive.

In the end, like any sport, you have to be an unbelievably gifted golfer to be able to sniff a professional tour of any kind. My brother is a club pro in Orlando with a plus-handicap (better than scratch) and he has played rounds with guys ranging from the Hooters Tour to the PGA/European Tours. Even at his skill level, there is a huge difference between my brother and the guys who make a living at it. He can hang with them every so often, but those guys hang up 65s in practice rounds like its no big deal.

Maybe it isn't as expensive as, say, Alpine skiing, but it is still expensive. I've never known anyone to play golf that wasn't fairly well to do, and I live in a place where a lot of people play golf. I think a lot of people are going to be priced out of golf that wouldn't be priced out of/eliminated due to lack of access to facilities from soccer, basketball, football, baseball.

Of course I may have lower standards than you do for what counts as rich/expensive. For me, household income >100k = rich.

Btw, I'm not saying that pro golfers aren't ridiculously good at golf/work hard/have some sort of freaky in-born talent.

Summer is Coming wrote:

MLB, NFL, NHL condone PED use and are not considered sports by the American public.

NASCAR is not athletics.

PGA is not athletics.

Then consider them games rather than sports. Who gives a $hit.

Agreed about NASCAR, undecided on golf, leaning towards it being a sport.

NCAA DI-A Football is sports during the regular season.

Bowl games are demo games. The BCS is a beauty contest and not sports.

Summer is Coming wrote:

MLB, NFL, NHL condone PED use and are not considered sports by the American public.

MLB, NFL, NHL are not considered sports by the American public?

Are you kidding?

They are sports. In MLB, however, you don't really need to be all that athletic. One must be very skilled, though.

According to the National Federation of High Schools, there are 17,969 high schools in the country with a basketball program for a total of 550,000 aspiring NBA players. In large schools even making it to the team is very tough.

There are 312 teams in division I college ball. That means there's less then 4,000 spots for these 550,000 players.

The NBA drafts 60, only 30 make a squad, half of those are foreign players, so the real number is about 16.

Fewer than 30 percent of the annual top 100 high school seniors eventually were drafted to the NBA.

Your odds are 0.00454 percent — 1 in 22,000.

http://trueslant.com/bobcook/2010/06/28/the-extraordinarily-long-odds-of-making-the-nba/

Average person no. But in the PGA you can be above average with great work habits and have a shot. In the NBA/MLB/NFL you need to the freakish level of ability. At a certain level this it is hard to evaluate. How many kids are willing to put in the time? I went to score with some kids that could drive the ball a mile (300+ as a 16 year old). If he was willing to practice 6 hours a day instead of 1, would they have been able to develop into a world class player? Who knows. Sort of like asking if everyone in your HS ran for 90mins a day, how much faster would you XC team be.

Those are very interesting numbers- factual and kids should be seeing these numbers.

Imagine the odds of a kid being competitive in a Major Marathon?

You have how many Americans? Plus, the whole world to deal with.

Let's say, what are the odds of getting a shoe contract at $50,000 or more?

I know someone who signed for 50 Grand a few years ago, she's prolly higher now.

Nascar is not about talent but how much money you have. Yes a few are at the top because they are truly the best but for the most part auto racing is about who you know/how much you want to spend rather than pure driving talent. Paul Menard is not a good driver but has money, Kyle Petty was a terrible driver by Nascar standards but because of his dad made it, same could be said for Dale Jr.

Depends on your definition of athletic. Having the hand eye coordination to hit a 90mph fastball is athletic. So is the ability to repeatingly throw that ball 80+mpw into a small square.

asdc wrote:

They are sports. In MLB, however, you don't really need to be all that athletic. One must be very skilled, though.