Pro Athletes (and Coaches and Umpires)

In honor of March Madness, I decided to focus my first "spotlight" on professional athletes, coaches, and umpires. This is kind of a mismatch, because March Madness is college athletics, and I've specifically excluded college students due to the difficulty identifying them in a survey that asks only about paid work.

We defined pro athletes as those whose 1) self-reported their occupation as “athletes, coaches, umpires and related workers”, 2) self-reported their industry as “independent artists, performing arts, spectator sports and related industries”, 3) were in the labor force and were currently employed, 4) were not enrolled in school, and 5) reported wage/salary income.

The American Community Survey (ACS) 2008, 2009 and 2010 contained 570 individuals who met this definition. Based on this sample (using the ACS sample weights), it is estimated that there were 23,969 people who met this definition in the U.S. in 2008, 21,369 in 2009, and 23,969 in 2010. A descriptive analysis of the weighted sample yielded the following information:

Demographics:

It’s no great surprise that most pro athletes are young men. Nine out of 10 (90.8%) of self-reported athletes, coaches and umpires in the spectator sports industry are male. Although coaches and umpires are perhaps older than the athletes themselves, we see that this job category is still substantially younger than the non-student workforce overall. Almost 43% were under the age of 30, compared to only 19% of the civilian labor force.

Although the stereotype of a pro athlete is African-American, we see that 67.2% are non-Hispanic white, while only 19.4% are non-Hispanic black, and 9.6% are Hispanic. Still, the proportion of African-Americans is substantially higher than in the civilian labor force overall (10.9%). We should keep in mind that this category includes not only the stereotypical ballplayers, but also sports figures such as tennis players, golfers, and race care drivers (as well as coaches and umpires).

Most American athletes are citizens of the U.S., but 16.1% are not. Another 4.7% are naturalized citizens. Athletes who were not born U.S. citizens are far more likely to be from Canada (31.3%) than from any other country.

Personal Life:

The stereotype of an athlete is a wealthy playboy bachelor, and we do find that only 45.6% of athletes are married, while 46.6% have never been married and 7.5% are divorced or separated. This is a higher percentage of bachelors than in the labor force overall, but this is partially due to the younger age of the sports figures. At the youngest ages (late teens and 20s), athletes are less likely to be married than people of similar age in the civilian labor force. By the 30s, however, the percent who are currently married is much more similar (although by this age the sports figure group are probably less likely to be actual athletes and more likely to be coaches or umpires). Contrary to the “swinging bachelor” stereotype, professional sports figures do not seem to divorce at higher rates than their counterparts in the civilian labor force, and by their late 30s are actually substantially more likely than others to be married.

The “dumb jock” stereotype also does not appear to hold water. Pro sports figures are not any more likely to have dropped out of high school than their counterparts in the civilian labor force, and are actually MORE likely to have attended college (80.6% versus 60.4%) and specifically to have completed a bachelor’s degree (47.2% versus 30.8%).

Career:

Working hours for sports figures vary considerably… this is a group that is much more likely to work fewer than 20 hours per week compared to the non-student civilian labor force, but also much more likely to work more than 50 hours a week. Some of this variation may depend on whether the respondent’s sport was “in season” at the time he or she was surveyed – only 64.3% of sports figures reported working 50 or more weeks in the past year.

Income showed the same sort of U-shaped curve as working hours, indicating that professional sports can be either a very good or a very bad career choice financially. More than one out of five full-time athletes/coaches (20.7%) reported that they had earned less than $20,000 in the previous year. But at the same time, one in four (25.1%) earned $100,000 or more, 15.6% earned $250,000 or more! As seen below, full-time professional sports figures were more likely to be in the lowest income bracket than their counterparts in the civilian labor force overall, but were also far more likely to be in highest income bracket.

The appropriate citation for data taken from this blogpost (in MLA format) is:

American Community Survey, 2008-2010 Public Use Microdata, as cited by McGinnis, Sandra, "Pro Athletes (and Coaches and Umpires)". Weblog entry. American Community Spotlight. Date posted: March 23, 2012. Date accessed: ?. http://americancommunityspotlight.blogspot.com/.