Comment by Someone

> The main point is "can you compete while not being fully dedicated to the sport (i.e. it being your literal day job)".

Taking that as “compete at top level world-wide”, that’s a matter of number of number of competitors.

To do that, you need to have a good combination of physical abilities, mental abilities, and opportunity (growing up in a rich country or in a rich family helps even in cheap sports such as athletics) and dedication to the sport.

If you are three sigma above the mean from that, you’re (about) in the top 1/1000 of competitors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68–95–99.7_rule#Three-sigma_ru...)

If you’re playing soccer, that means that, world-wide, you’re in the top quarter million or so (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_player: “It has been estimated that there are 250 million association football players in the world, and many play other forms of football.”), so chances are you won’t be well-known, world-wide. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1283927/number-pro-socce... says *“FIFA estimated that there were 123,694 professional soccer players worldwide.”, so half of those that are three sigma above average will play professionally, I expect most of them for, at best, middle class salaries)

Numbers are hard to come by, but in snooker, that probably gets you into the top 100 or so. In trail running, I suspect it gets you in the top 10.