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Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

This seems very unlikely to me given the propensity of finance firm to hire even college athletes never mind people who got to be in the top one or 200 of their sport in the world. Anyone who is capable of pushing the work in day after day to get a good at some thing that doesn’t very well like sport is capable of putting enormous amount of work day after day to get good at something that does pay well. Most famously jocks are good at sales. Athletes are no fools. Often of the top of my head Michael Jordan has had a very successful career as an investor after the end of his sporting career. Michelle Debruin, and Irish Olympic gold medallist in swimming, went on to become a Barrister, a trial lawyer in the American parlance. The people who stay in Borsh are staying in sports because they really really love i,t not because they’re not capable of making more money in other ways.

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    > Athletes are no fools

A quick search will show you the shockingly high bankruptcy rates for former pro athletes. Plus, most of them do not finish uni and have few marketable skills after their short career ends.

You can have jobs without a degree. Important and fullfilling jobs too.

Those bankruptcy statistics might be biased given how poorly paid athletes are, thus tgey might be a consequence of their past and not their present.

They aren't fools, they pursue their dreams. Less foolish than some of us.

> Those bankruptcy statistics might be biased given how poorly paid athletes are, thus tgey might be a consequence of their past and not their present.

You're generalizing quite a bit here. The other common story for those in the team sports I've heard is that a ton of them have poor financial education and got fleeced by money managers. Combo that with poor job prospects and injuries from the sport itself that you've to pay to treat...

I know someone who went through this. dreams followed. Pursued a sport through college, didn't quite make pro. afterwards life languished and didn't quite amount to much.

I think people might need to have a plan b, but honestly I don't know very many people who do. People are good at doing what defines them, not hedging.

> You can have jobs without a degree. Important and fullfilling jobs too.

For sure, I'm someone like that. But I started at 20 to get into my field. My first job was laughably badly paid, but I got a foot in the door.

These athletes usually end their career at around 35. An age where you already have a family or plan to get it soon, meaning you have financial obligations, and it's not easy to completely switch the career tracks. Many will manage to do it, but many will rather choose the safe way of staying in the sport, where they already have a resume, knowledge, customer base.

    > given how poorly paid athletes are

To be clear, in the US, when people say pro-athlete, they mostly means NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB. (Yes, tennis counts also, but leave that aside for a moment.)

I Googled for minimum contracts in those four leagues:

NBA: 1.1m USD NFL: 660k USD NHL: 750k USD MLB: 60k USD

MLB is shockingly low, but it might be explained by the farm leagues. (I don't know more details.) I doubt anyone who sees regular play in the MLB is making so little.

You're talking about maybe the top 1500 sportspeople in the country.

The rest are poorly paid.

If you play in the major league baseball you min is $740k not $60k. https://apnews.com/major-league-baseball-labor-agreement-det...

ESPN's 30-for-30 episode "Broke" is a great watch. It does seem though that newer generation athletes are a bit better educated in that matter since they're better connected online, but that might just be anecdotal.

As a contrary example there is Boris Becker

You have the 1950s approach: we hire a hard working person amd after 5 years of internship they will become great.

Most companies nowadays offer zero on the job training. You need 5 years of experience for your internship. You are supposed to make impact now.

Maybe somoene can score some sales based on looks, but come on.

You need to register your sales in SAP now, it's your problem nobody told you how (although with sales they still will, since it is a profit center).

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