What percentage of the US population are professional athletes?

Answer 1

1 out of every 250 college athletes 'Go Pro' according to the NCAA and NAIA stats, so in a given year where on average there are 400,000 student athletes, there are potentially 16,000 of them that would go pro over the next four years. If for estimate sake, we say 25% of those will be the senior graduating class, then about 4,000 athletes each year go professional.

Not sure of the latest stats on US population, but as of the latest info I could get my hands on, there are appx. 300,000,000 people in the US today, and the average tenure of a pro athlete is only 3-5 years depending on the sport. (some longer/shorter) So the percentage of actual current pro athletes to US population would be somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15k (est) pro athletes in the US and so you would be looking at something like .00005%

Answer 2

Professional athletes make up a very small percentage of the US population, estimated to be less than 0.02%.