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I pretty firmly believe the majority of, say, Badminton pros who could have been pro in other more lucrative sports. In the same way you saw eg Magic Pro Tour

I pretty firmly believe the majority of, say, Badminton pros who could have been pro in other more lucrative sports. In the same way you saw eg Magic Pro Tour players switching to poker. I don't hold for a moment that the average pro gamer has the skills to transition to "traditional" sports. So, like, at what level is a choice to grab the smaller pie, vs the choice to focus on a specific skill they do actually have over and above a desk job

bena 4y ago
First, I'd dispute your claim that majority of Badminton pros could go pro in other sports. Definitely some of them, being fast with good hand-eye coordination is going to get you places. But there's a limit. If you can make it in NFL, NBA, MLB, etc, you do. And the true superstars often have the option of multiple sports. Patrick Mahomes was drafted for both the NFL and MLB. Lebron James got tryouts with a couple of teams. Bo Jackson had a professional football career and a professional baseball career concurrently. Football, baseball, rugby, soccer, and basketball all "poach" from the others' sports because athletes gonna athlete. But badminton is already a cousin to tennis. And if you can do well in tennis, you should do that. The only reason to be the best in badminton rather than the best in tennis is some weird obsession. You choose niches when you can't or don't want to compete in the general arena. Second. It's not a choice between eSports and traditional sports. It's a choice between eSports and almost anything else. The goal isn't to play something with sports in the title, the goal is to earn a living. And the best eSports player in the world is getting outearned by mid-level accountants. You could go to college for four years, spend under $40k, get an accounting degree, then go get a job at any accounting firm or in-house at any company, and be earning about $60k a year. And if college isn't for you, you can become an electrician's apprentice. Earn about $40k a year while you learn how to be a fully licensed electrician. Then after 4 years, you get licensed and can double your money. Ideally, you should choose the thing that can provide you a decent living while leveraging your skills and/or talents without overworking you. But eSports doesn't provide a decent living on average. And it overworks everyone. And that kind of ignores that ability and/or skill is only part of it. The people who are currently the best in areas where the money isn't there are only the best of the people who can be bothered to do it. The hypothetical best CounterStrike player possible probably does not even play the game. Because somewhere, early in the sieve, they did the math and realized the effort required to maintain their position was not worth the reward for doing so. And it could have been when they were the best Quake deathmatcher on their dorm floor. They realized they could continue playing or study for midterms. And they chose their midterms because that was going to secure the bag.
- Ntrails 4y ago
  > First, I'd dispute your claim that majority of Badminton pros could go pro in other sports. Definitely some of them, being fast with good hand-eye coordination is going to get you places. But there's a limit. I was picking a random low remuneration sport and suggesting they have a skillset that could have transferred to a different one. It was a broad example for "choosing between sports is a real conceptual thing that athletes who go pro have implicitly done, though they may not have ever considered the options because they were on a path". > Second. It's not a choice between eSports and traditional sports. The thread above me is literally acting as though it's a comparison between the two paths being offered. It obviously is not, they're wildly different skillsets. All that said, obviously eSports is a terrible life choice rationally, unless you want to spend your "working" life doing a thing you love rather than earning maximal money per unit effort. I respect people who do that, as a rule.
  - bena 4y ago
    You deliberately chose badminton, then made a pretty big claim about those players. Now it feels like you're trying to walk it back into something more vague. Choosing between sports is a thing. But there are tiers. Choosing between different low remuneration sports is a wash. The choice is between levels of remuneration. Which, looking back, is what you claimed. That any given badminton pro has a high chance of becoming an NFL player. As an aside, professional badminton, specifically, is one of those things I think where you wake up some days and realize the very specific things in your life that had to happen to put you where you are. Not something you seek out deliberately. And I'm not even saying they considered other non-sports options. I'm essentially calling it a stupid decision to not do so. These are people, at least in the eSports/CCG scene, who talk a lot about the expected values of things. And the expected value of a pro eSports/CCG pro career is not good. And I never said anything about "earning maximal money per unit effort". I said provide a decent living while not overworking you. In eSports, you have to "earn maximal money per unit effort" just to make a living. I'm saying, they should choose a vocation where they can earn better money for less effort units.
    - Ntrails 4y ago

bena 4y ago

First, I'd dispute your claim that majority of Badminton pros could go pro in other sports. Definitely some of them, being fast with good hand-eye coordination is going to get you places. But there's a limit. If you can make it in NFL, NBA, MLB, etc, you do. And the true superstars often have the option of multiple sports. Patrick Mahomes was drafted for both the NFL and MLB. Lebron James got tryouts with a couple of teams. Bo Jackson had a professional football career and a professional baseball career concurrently. Football, baseball, rugby, soccer, and basketball all "poach" from the others' sports because athletes gonna athlete. But badminton is already a cousin to tennis. And if you can do well in tennis, you should do that. The only reason to be the best in badminton rather than the best in tennis is some weird obsession. You choose niches when you can't or don't want to compete in the general arena. Second. It's not a choice between eSports and traditional sports. It's a choice between eSports and almost anything else. The goal isn't to play something with sports in the title, the goal is to earn a living. And the best eSports player in the world is getting outearned by mid-level accountants. You could go to college for four years, spend under $40k, get an accounting degree, then go get a job at any accounting firm or in-house at any company, and be earning about $60k a year. And if college isn't for you, you can become an electrician's apprentice. Earn about $40k a year while you learn how to be a fully licensed electrician. Then after 4 years, you get licensed and can double your money. Ideally, you should choose the thing that can provide you a decent living while leveraging your skills and/or talents without overworking you. But eSports doesn't provide a decent living on average. And it overworks everyone. And that kind of ignores that ability and/or skill is only part of it. The people who are currently the best in areas where the money isn't there are only the best of the people who can be bothered to do it. The hypothetical best CounterStrike player possible probably does not even play the game. Because somewhere, early in the sieve, they did the math and realized the effort required to maintain their position was not worth the reward for doing so. And it could have been when they were the best Quake deathmatcher on their dorm floor. They realized they could continue playing or study for midterms. And they chose their midterms because that was going to secure the bag.

Ntrails 4y ago
> First, I'd dispute your claim that majority of Badminton pros could go pro in other sports. Definitely some of them, being fast with good hand-eye coordination is going to get you places. But there's a limit. I was picking a random low remuneration sport and suggesting they have a skillset that could have transferred to a different one. It was a broad example for "choosing between sports is a real conceptual thing that athletes who go pro have implicitly done, though they may not have ever considered the options because they were on a path". > Second. It's not a choice between eSports and traditional sports. The thread above me is literally acting as though it's a comparison between the two paths being offered. It obviously is not, they're wildly different skillsets. All that said, obviously eSports is a terrible life choice rationally, unless you want to spend your "working" life doing a thing you love rather than earning maximal money per unit effort. I respect people who do that, as a rule.
- bena 4y ago
  You deliberately chose badminton, then made a pretty big claim about those players. Now it feels like you're trying to walk it back into something more vague. Choosing between sports is a thing. But there are tiers. Choosing between different low remuneration sports is a wash. The choice is between levels of remuneration. Which, looking back, is what you claimed. That any given badminton pro has a high chance of becoming an NFL player. As an aside, professional badminton, specifically, is one of those things I think where you wake up some days and realize the very specific things in your life that had to happen to put you where you are. Not something you seek out deliberately. And I'm not even saying they considered other non-sports options. I'm essentially calling it a stupid decision to not do so. These are people, at least in the eSports/CCG scene, who talk a lot about the expected values of things. And the expected value of a pro eSports/CCG pro career is not good. And I never said anything about "earning maximal money per unit effort". I said provide a decent living while not overworking you. In eSports, you have to "earn maximal money per unit effort" just to make a living. I'm saying, they should choose a vocation where they can earn better money for less effort units.
  - Ntrails 4y ago