Well, nfl/nba are focused on big guys, 6’3 and above. In soccer your height/mass doesn’t matter much so the talent pools don’t overlap. And baseball is the old man’s game that does not require any athleticism at all.

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majormajor 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Lotta roles for fast smaller guys in NFL and MLB, so there's certainly competition.

Beaten-to-death takes about baseball and athleticism aside, if a kid shows potential there it's a great path to follow:

- some of the highest individual salaries and (to date) least restrictions on team spending

- it's very very very easy for individual talent to stand out at basically every position; this can be harder in football and various levels especially for non-QB positions

But once you're on the baseball path you're not gonna be training a skillset that would have much overlap with a soccer skillset.

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musicale 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As you indicate the most popular (and generally highest paying) professional sports in the US are football, basketball and baseball.

This includes college football and basketball, which are part of the career path for those sports.

Women's soccer is relatively popular, however.

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lostapathy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Women's soccer is relatively popular, however.

This may be a function of the fact that no other women's team sport is at all popular in the US?

	▲	notesinthefield an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Womens basketball viewership across college, pro and semi pro levels is significantly more popular than equivalent womens soccer levels. Non-USWNT games are surprisingly hard to locate and stream.
	▲	onlypassingthru an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The WNBA would like a word.

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dpark 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> In soccer your height/mass doesn’t matter much so the talent pools don’t overlap.

This is untrue and also just silly. The talent pools for horse jockeys and NBA players don't overlap. The talent pool for soccer and football is probably 90% overlap. Smaller players are certainly more likely to be successful in soccer than football but tall players can do great in soccer and average height guys can do well in football.

> And baseball is the old man’s game that does not require any athleticism at all.

Come on. Baseball doesn't demand the same athleticism as soccer but these guys are still elite athletes and there are plenty of stories of both MLB and NFL offering positions to the same players.

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hunterpayne 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The average NFL CB is the same size as a striker, but quicker and faster. And it isn't even all that close. Its the living and breathing soccer that matters. In those places, the best athletes play soccer. In the US, they play football or basketball. And if you think you can do anything at a pro level without extreme levels of athleticism, you are greatly deluded.

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jandrewrogers 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The amount of distance covered in a soccer game is twice that of a cornerback in an NFL game. Unlike NFL, soccer also has very limited substitutions so you can't readily swap in fresh legs. An athlete needs to be able to go the full distance at a high level.

A natural cornerback isn't going to be "quicker and faster" over that many miles without a different kind of conditioning that probably favors different genetics. That said, I do think the game would translate well for some cornerbacks in some roles.

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leoc 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Additionally, a top-division European soccer team also typically plays something like 34 or 38 league games every season, and that doesn’t include things like domestic cups and European competition.

	▲	jandrewrogers 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Excellent point. I hadn’t even considered the number of games. Good players will play over 2500 minutes in a season. That is a completely different type of wear and tear.