Following any professional sports has probably made you realize that there is money in sports. However, not everyone can be athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Lebron James, and Virat Kohli who earns millions or even billions of dollars each year.
Surely, being an athlete is no joke, and becoming a professional athlete takes a lot of time, training, and experience. Not everyone simply has what it takes to be a pro athlete. Some could be fans of specific sports like cricket but it doesn’t mean that they can play cricket themselves. Sometimes, they can only really do online cricket betting.
However, if you’re pushing to find a career in sports that doesn’t require you to be playing the actual sport, you’ll be happy to know that there are a few great options that you can consider. Here is some sports-related career that you may be interested in.
· Statistician
Love sports but you also love math and data? Then why not be a statistician that works on sports data? As a statistician in the sports industry, you may be able to test theoretical concepts or analyze information to identify overall solutions to sports-related issues.
You get to work on the performance data of a team or an athlete to help them know how they can improve. You can also work on the business side of things like improving the financial processes of the industry. Typically, you’ll need a master’s degree in statistics to get this job. The median annual salary for this is around 92,000 US dollars.
· Physical Therapist
A physical therapist is necessary for every sports team. As a PT, you support athletes if they have any pain or mobility issues. You are also part of their healing process if they get injured from training or a game. You develop treatments and rehabilitation plans for injured athletes.
You will usually work on sports-related injuries but you are also expected to develop injury prevention plans. You are the go-to if any athletes have a concern about their bodies and physical stamina. You will need a license as a PT to get this job and the median annual salary for this is 89,440 US dollars.
· Sports Psychologist
When it comes to sports, the physical health of the athletes is a priority but so is mental health. As a sports psychologist, you get to observe and make assessments on the behaviors of the people in the team. You need to know and understand the psychological factors involved in sports and a master’s degree may be required for this.
Sports aren’t just physically tiring. Athletes need help when it comes to conditioning themselves to get their heads in the game. A sports psychologist also comes in to help teams deal with losses or stressful times during competitions. The median annual salary for this job is 80,370 US dollars.
· Sports Agent
A sports agent can be a very busy job. Your job is to help an athlete go through contract negotiations, business deals, and even public relations. It’s a busy field and connections and wide networks are also important here. The courses that you can take to become a sports agent should be under a business-related field.
It would also help if you’re good at math as you’re mainly dealing with contracts that concern the earnings of the athletes. Your problem-solving skills should be good and great charm and charisma would also help. The median annual salary for this job is 73,740 US dollars.
· Sports Writer or Photographer
If you have the flair for writing, you can write articles on sports. You can go about this in two ways. You can be a sports columnist for a specific publisher, newspaper, or magazine. You can be a freelance sports writer and find someone who’d be interested in buying your pieces. AS a sportswriter, you need to know the sport you’re writing about. Use technical terms is important. You can earn as much as 50,000 US dollars as a sportswriter each year.
If you’re more into taking photos rather than writing, then you can also choose to be a sports photographer. Like in writing, you can also go about this in two ways. You can be employed by a publishing company or be a freelance photographer and sell the photos you take of live matches. Usually, sports photographers are found right beside the grounds and it can be challenging because you need to have sellable shots. As a sports photographer, you can earn around 49,000 US dollars each year.
