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Our estimate of the mean is still 400-900k, whereas the mean in sports/arts/entertainment is only about $70k. https://80000hours.org/articles/highest-paying-jobs/ Even the junior roles in trading are higher paid than this.

You're right that you also need to account for the chance of dropping out of the role all together, which is hard. (Though drop out rates are high in both sports and finance.)

There is very little demand for professional athletes so training to a very high level in mathematics or finance is a much less risky proposition.

Probably because the perceived skill difference between this and many other modern jobs is small. I can imagine people being incredulous that this is skill rather than something less deserved (luck/situation/...).

The skill difference between your average SWE (or even average college basketball player) and an NBA player is pretty massive (and quite visible). I'd imagine it's much harder to find an someone that says 'yeah that's easy I could do that' about an NBA career...