• Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It doesn’t seem that realistic if you need to perform in the top 1% among all your poverty stricken competitors. There’s a finite number of places for successful athletes.

    • T156@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Especially when the people with financial resources will usually have a better chance of making it for one reason or another.

      • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re missing my point I think.

        Sure, a not insignificant number of sports stars have a background that’s considered lower class, but the number of people living below that poverty line that will become sports stars is so low I’m not even sure how many zeros go between 0.[…]1%

        Even if all of those people were top class athletes, there’s only room in the sports world for a few hundred of them at most.

        It’s not a realistic career path, it’s a lottery that requires high level athletic skill.

          • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I see, my apologies.

            I thought you were trying to say it was a realistic way for them to escape poverty when you said it was the only realistic way to escape poverty.

      • Whirlybird
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        1 year ago

        But again - it’s the 1% that made it there. Only ~450 players are in the NRL. Many of them earn the minimum allowed of 100k still, and their careers average like 3 years. That’s the 1%.