Alternative careers
Related career paths that build on similar skills and experience
Why it fits
Uses sports injury awareness, conditioning, return-to-play judgment, field routines, and athlete communication.
Why it fits
Transfers group leadership, activity planning, participant safety, motivation, and event routines.
Why it fits
Fits athletes moving into program scheduling, staff coordination, member engagement, safety, and fitness planning.
Why it fits
Fits athletes with contract, sponsorship, recruiting, networking, and career-navigation experience.
Occupation snapshot
What does this snowflake show?
What's this?
We rate jobs using four factors. These are:
- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions
These are some key things to think about when job hunting.
Risk & user votes
Calculated automation risk
Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.
More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.
Human strengths important in this job
These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.
Decision-making and problem solving
Very importantWhy this matters
Working directly with the public
Quite importantWhy this matters
Thinking creatively
Quite importantWhy this matters
Social perceptiveness
Quite importantWhy this matters
Coaching and developing others
Quite importantWhy this matters
Show 3 more strengths
Coordinating others’ work
Quite importantWhy this matters
Developing objectives and strategies
Quite importantWhy this matters
Active learning
Quite importantWhy this matters
What users think
Based on 1,477 votes
Our visitors have voted there's a minimal chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 13% chance of automation.
What do you think the risk of automation is?
What is the likelihood that Athletes and Sports Competitors will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?
Sentiment
Based on user votes over time
View sentiment trend
How opinions have changed over time
Pay & outlook
Wages
In 2024, the median annual wage for Athletes and Sports Competitors was $62,360 ($30 per hour).
The median annual wage for Athletes and Sports Competitors was 26.0% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.
View wage trend
Wages over time
Growth
The number of 'Athletes and Sports Competitors' job openings is expected to rise 5.5% by 2034
View employment trend
Total employment, and estimated job openings
Updated projections are due 09-2025.
Volume
As of 2024 there were 14,370 people employed as 'Athletes and Sports Competitors' within the United States.
This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country
Put another way, around 1 in 10 thousand people are employed as 'Athletes and Sports Competitors'.
People also viewed
Job description
Compete in athletic events.
O*NET-SOC code: 27-2021.00
What people are saying (98)
An AI cannot choose between passing and running when it doesn’t know anything about the defenders. An AI cannot choose which teammate to pass to in a game of hockey. An AI cannot make a game of baseball interesting. This is because AI cannot and never will have the ability to make mistakes or learn about another team outside of the game.
The only job AI can ever have in sports is keeping track of the scoreboard or selling food and drink at a concession stand.
Do you understand, Miss/Mr. Robot or AI? 😎
However, as you've said, AI in a human-like body would still look fake because of the uncanny valley. There are already separate competitions for robot athletes, and these were held years ago.
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