A lot of young athletes believe that sports may be their way to escape poverty and provide a better life for them and their family. The numbers showing us how many of them actually make it into the NFL through the process of high school, college football and eventually the pros, shows once again just how important education is before anything else.

According to recruit757.com, only 0.01 of high school football players will actually become NFL players with at least four years in the league. The math might be discouraging, but it also shows that making it into college and the opportunities excelling at the sports brings to a young person, regardless of if he’s good enough to make it into the league, which is why focusing on the educational part of the university years is the most important thing.

There are about 1.086 million high school players who take part of the football team. However, by senior year, only 310,465 are left (28.6% remaining).

From that, we drop to 70,147 who begin an NCAA football career, and of them 20,042 are Freshmen. That brings us to only 6.5% of high school players actually taking their trade and carrying on with it in the next level.

There are 15,588 seniors in College Football. There are players who leave to the NFL sooner, but those are very few when compared to the numbers beginning the journey. About 6500 players are scouted by the NFL, and of them only 350 are invited to the combine. So the math is, more or less: 50,105 players who are eligible to enter the league, and of them only 12.9% get scouted by the NFL. The chance of being eligble for the NFL and getting a combine invite? 0.69%.

So 256 players get drafted, and NFL teams have 300 rookies on them. So only 1.6% of NCAA players make the NFL, but there are only 150 players, as we mentioned earlier, who make it to year four. The minimum salary in the NFL is $420,000, which after taxes comes to about $252,000. Million can be made, but by very few.

Hat Tip: Kirk Barton