What are the odds?

My wife, Lindsay, has advised numerous hockey players over the past three years (and written about academics for USA Junior Hockey Magazine) as well as athletes involved in football, softball, soccer, swimming, and track. Some of these individuals know that their road ends with college since there isn’t “professional” swimming, but others hold on to the dream to be paid to play the sport that they love. As a matter of personal interest, Lindsay went looking for statistics that would indicate the likelihood of an athlete in any sport going on to the professional ranks. The NCAA published their findings for the following sports: men’s and women’s basketball, football, baseball, men’s hockey, and men’s soccer. To the best of her knowledge, these numbers do not include minor league or lower tier professional sports, simply recognized professional levels: the NBA, the WNBA, the NFL, MLB, the NHL, and MLS. There are 549,500 male and 456,900 female high school basket ball players. Of those, 15,700 males and 14,400 females are registered as NCAA student-athletes. Of the 3500 male senior basketball players, only 44 are drafted each year on average. That means that 2.9% (or 2 out of every 100) male basketball players go on to play in college and only .03% (or 3 of every 10,000 people) go from high school on through to the professional ranks. For women, the numbers are even smaller. Of the 3200 senior women basketball players, only 32 of them will be drafted in the WNBA. This means that 3.1% (or 3 of every 100 women) will go on from high school to compete at the collegiate level and .02% (or 2 of every 10,000 women) will go onto the professional ranks. The numbers are slightly better for football players, probably due to larger rosters. There are 281,000 senior high school football players in this country. 56, 500 of those become NCAA student-athletes, and only 12,600 become NCAA senior student-athletes. 250 of those football players are drafted on average each year to the 32 teams in the NFL, which means that 5.8% (or 5 out of every 100 high school players) will go onto play NCAA football, but only .09% (or 9 of every 10,000 people) will go from playing high school football onto the NFL. Baseball gives the best odds, again probably due to roster size and number of teams. There are 455,300 baseball players at the high school level. 25,700 of these players participate at the collegiate level. Of the 5,700 senior level NCAA student-athletes, 600 are drafted by MLB. Baseball players have a 5.6% chance of playing at the collegiate level in their sport, and .5% (5 of every 1000 people) chance to play at the professional level. Baseball players are ten times more likely to participate in major league sports than male or female basketball players. Soccer players also have better odds than most. Of the 321,400 men’s soccer players, 18, 200 of them become NCAA student-athletes. Of the 4100 senior student-athletes, 46 are drafted to the professional ranks. Although a soccer player has a 5.7% chance of playing in high school and college, he has only a .08% (8 of every 10,000 people) chance of participating in professional soccer. Hockey surprised her. She didn’t really think that the odds were in the players’ favor and yet, here are the numbers. Of the 29,900 high school level hockey players in the United States, 3,700 of them become NCAA student athletes. That’s 12.9% (12 out of every 100 people) – double the chances of a football player, which the next highest likelihood. But of the 800 senior NCAA hockey players, only 33 are drafted. This gives an NCAA hockey player a .4% (4 of every 1000 people) chance of participating in professional sports after participating in high school and college. The odds in hockey are better than any other of the sports listed except baseball. Despite the positive outlook for hockey players, the fact remains that one player for every 1000 players will achieve his dream of being “paid to play” in ANY sport. For those 12 out of every 100 players who participates at the collegiate level, use that opportunity to learn, to educate, and to graduate.