Professional Sports Percentage Make Men's United Lot Money

Professional sports in the United States are "big business" - it makes a lot of money for the team owners and the players. In 2011, the lowest "salary" (amount paid for working) for a professional Major League Baseball player is $400,000 a year, for example. The "average" (number one gets by adding all of the numbers in a list and dividing by the number of items) salary is "slightly" (a little bit) less than $3,000,000 a year.

Not surprisingly, a lot of boys and girls grow up dreaming of "making it" (being successful; being part of) professional sports. But how "realistic" (practical; possible) is this dream? Should parents encourage their children "to pursue" (to try to achieve; to try to get) a career (life-long job; working for many years) in sports?

A study reported in a 2011 newspaper article in the Wall Street Journal "calculated" (determined mathematically) the percentage of high school "athletes" (people who play sports) who make it to the professional level. Here's the total percentage of young athletes who make it, by sport, from lowest percentage to highest:

Men's Basketball: 0.03%

Women's Basketball: 0.03%

Men's Soccer: 0.07%

Football (American): 0.08%

Men's Ice Hockey: 0.31%

Baseball: 0.44%

The total of all of these combined is less than 1%. In other words, more than 99% of all student athletes will fail to make money playing these professional sports, the most popular in the United States.