Including practice squad players (who are paid peanuts), the NFL has about 2,240 roster spots. About a million US high school students play football any given year. The average NFL career is 3.3 years.
So from 3.3 graduating classes of a million high school football players, you'd expect somewhere around 0.07% to make it into the NFL. Fewer even will
have something resembling a successful career.
Then look at how many high paying "smart person" jobs there are. There are about a million doctors in the US, two million engineers, and four million computer professionals.
Almost every student studies math, almost none of those ever become a mathematician - who are compensated much less than NFL players.
> There are about a million doctors in the US
Comparing # of doctors to # of NFL players is a very false equivalence. Try comparing # of athletes in all sports combined to number of doctors - that would be more reasonable. Or compare the number of brain surgeons to the number of NFL players - and the difficulty/time in becoming either.
Being a doctor is a much more stressful and difficult job, which requires more years of training/education and provides far more real value for society.
One of my best friends is now in a wheelchair for life, thanks to high school football.
You are always taking a risk. Sometimes it's just that it won't work out financially. Sometimes it's more serious than that. It's a small risk, but non-zero. Even successful football players suffer from much higher rates of mental health issues, among other poor health outcomes.
Just because someone takes risks, doesn't mean they deserve exorbitant compensation for that. Lots of people take risks all of the time for much less. Lots of sports, and even non-sport jobs are much more dangerous than playing in the NFL, and compensated much less.
Complaining about NFL players not making enough money is just funny to me.
tomjakubowski|5 months ago
Including practice squad players (who are paid peanuts), the NFL has about 2,240 roster spots. About a million US high school students play football any given year. The average NFL career is 3.3 years.
So from 3.3 graduating classes of a million high school football players, you'd expect somewhere around 0.07% to make it into the NFL. Fewer even will have something resembling a successful career.
Then look at how many high paying "smart person" jobs there are. There are about a million doctors in the US, two million engineers, and four million computer professionals.
wubrr|5 months ago
Almost every student studies math, almost none of those ever become a mathematician - who are compensated much less than NFL players.
> There are about a million doctors in the US
Comparing # of doctors to # of NFL players is a very false equivalence. Try comparing # of athletes in all sports combined to number of doctors - that would be more reasonable. Or compare the number of brain surgeons to the number of NFL players - and the difficulty/time in becoming either.
Being a doctor is a much more stressful and difficult job, which requires more years of training/education and provides far more real value for society.
steveklabnik|5 months ago
You are always taking a risk. Sometimes it's just that it won't work out financially. Sometimes it's more serious than that. It's a small risk, but non-zero. Even successful football players suffer from much higher rates of mental health issues, among other poor health outcomes.
wubrr|5 months ago
Complaining about NFL players not making enough money is just funny to me.