8 figure careers for guys since 2000...

Tennis players would be the top of the athletic chart for me. NFL and NBA wouldn't be top 5 in general terms, although that's not to say some of their players wouldn't make a list of the best.

Most footballers (the real one) at the top level cover around 10km per 90 minutes, and some run significantly more.

 

seriously this is laughable.

in 2000, my high school rugby union football team in Australia, St Josephs College (look it up - best rugby school in Australia), of which I was a fat **** member of, played the combined US college's team who were out here touring.

granted the US has only been playing rugby for less than 5 years at that stage, but the team was made up of college players who weren't good enough to make their respective college american football team but still wanted to travel and play sport.

after 80 minutes, the score was 106 to 0 in favour of us. 106 - NIL.

yes the Americans may have had a few players who were better athletes, and they were definitely bigger than us considering we were all 17 year olds playing 20 year olds, but your amazing US athletes were ****ing useless. and still are useless.

I was fortunate enough to live in the US for just over 3 years getting paid just over 6 figures to play and coach rugby union in Washington State. you had some amazing athletes. but your skills are ****ing terrible. even training with a very famous college team for 2 weeks in pre-season, i saw your skills are terrible.

 

It is not necessary for most soccer players to be able to do that since there's a lot more to the game. Every soccer player as to fill out multiple roles offensively as well as defensively unlike NFL players. 5 miles is only like 8 km and is below the average distance covered by a soccer player.
Soccer naturally isn't as explosive as american football since a play in NFL is usually no longer than 10 sec.

Let me put it this way: Yes American football players are bigger, faster and stronger which is everything in their sport. In soccer however it is not. Those attributes alone doesn't make you a great soccer player and most likely none of them would do well if they tried playing a soccer game (and the other way around).

So let me rephrase it: Are NBA and NFL players better sportsmen? No they are not imo. They are great though, and i especially enjoy NBA though i think there are way too many breaks in your sports

To answer your question money alone is rarely the motivation for someone to become great at something. You need to be made of a special type of material to fight for a living, it's way to brutal for most people and fightsports can't be compared to any other sports. Btw F1 drivers are short and extremely well paid. WC Lewis Hamilton is 1.74 m tall and earns 20 million dollars per year

Oh yeah and Messi is like 1.70 and earns above 40 mil per year

 

I looked up how much players in different sports ran the other day. Football was about a mile and a quarter. Basketball was about two and a half miles. Tennis was around five I think. Soccer was five miles with certain positions running up to nine and a half miles in a game.

Of course, running is just one aspect of these sports, and doesn't tell the whole tale. If running were all that mattered then a marathon runner or a cyclist would be considered the most athletic by default. And then a sprinter of 100 meters like Usain Bolt wouldn't be up for consideration because he doesn't run several miles. So we definitely need to consider the explosive agility that football players display, besides just how far they run. We also ought to consider that football and rugby combine displays of speed with displays of strength, which sports like soccer don't have.

This doesn't mean that baseball or cricket players are unathletic. I hear that the technical aspects of hitting a baseball, or certain elements of strategy are very demanding and sophisticated, and some of the hardest things to do in sports. I assume the same is true of cricket since they seem fairly similar.

Of course, when ESPN asked a panel of experts from the Olympic committee they agreed that boxing was the most difficult sport of all that required the highest levels of skill and athleticism to succeed.