Percentage Of College Athletes That Go Pro

A low percentage of only 1.6 percent of college football players go pro and make the NFL. 98.4 percent of collegiate players will not play professionally.

The 2023 NFL Draft witnessed the selection of 259 players in different positions. The highest by position was the cornerbacks with 36, followed by wide receivers with 33.

The NFL is a huge organization with only the best of the best players making it to the league. Every college football player has a dream to one day play in the NFL but not every dream is realized.

An estimation of over 70,000 collegiate football players participate every year with over 16,000 eligible for the Draft. Out of these eligible candidates, only 259 were drafted.

This means that the percentage of college football players that make it to the NFL is about 1.6%. The possibility of becoming a professional is not for all.

A career as a professional athlete in any sport is not an easy task and the NFL is one of the most competitive leagues in the world. Only a limited number of players will actually have a career as professional football players given only 1.6% of them will make it.

Some players also make it to NFL teams even if they are not directly drafted into the teams. They make it to one of the teams as an undrafted free agent and sometimes it does work out for them and go on to have a great career.

Josh Cribbs, Tony Romo, Rod Smith, Willie Brown, and Richard "Night Train" Lane are a few notables who have had a stellar career although they went undrafted. All of them were later signed as undrafted free agents.

An estimated 1.1 percent of college basketball players make it to the NBA. The NBA Draft only saw 46 NCAA players drafted of the 4,181 players eligible in 2023.

The 2023 Draft only had 58 picks instead of the usual 60 picks since the Chicago Bulls and the Philadephia 76ers lost the second-round pick for the violation of the tampering rules of the NBA during free agency.

Out of the 58 picks, only 46 players from various colleges that are part of the NCAA were selected from a pool of 4,181 players who were eligible for the Draft.

There were about 18,816 participants who played at the highest level of college basketball and since the NBA has only 60 picks, the competition is very high and the chances are very thin as well.

The chances of collegiate basketball players making it to the most renowned league are very slim just like the NFL. A slim 1.1% chance means that not every player who wants to play in the NBA will get a chance to do so.

It is the best and the most competitive basketball league and as a player, you too need to be among the best to make it big. As a player at the collegiate level, you need to be equally good to be seen by the scouts who are always looking for new talents.

The chances of making it to the NBA may also sometimes depend on the conference and the schools that the player plays for. SEC had 10 players selected in 2023, Big Ten had 8, and ACC along with Big East had 5 each.

Women's basketball had an estimated 16,509 NCAA participants and had 3,669 eligible players for the draft. The 2023 WNBA Draft had only 33 NCAA players that were drafted out of the total 36 draft limit.

This means that only 0.9% of the women's college basketball players actually make it to the WNBA.

The percentage of high school athletes that play in college are:

According to the estimated data, basketball has the most and the toughest competition given that less than four percent of high school players play during their college years.

Furthermore, an estimated 1% of high school basketball players play at the NCAA Division I level. If we take a look at the percentage of high school basketball players making it into the NBA, only a mere 0.2% make it to that level.

High school basketball has an estimated 551,373 participants each year and only 18,816 players play at the collegiate level. The number of players who continue playing after high school is very low.

There may be many factors related to the low turnouts in college basketball. Some may be focusing more on academics and may have discontinued playing, some may have had career-threatening injuries, and some may not have what it takes to play at that level.

When it comes to football, over a million play at the high school level, and only 73,557 turn out to play college football. 2.8% play at the Division I level and 1.8% play at the Division II level.

One out of 11 high school football players will go on to play college football. The FBS schools are the most competitive at the Division I level and every 1 in 100 high school players will play for a FBS school and for the FCS, only 1 in 40 will do so.

Tennis and golf are the two other sports with a low percentage of high school players who go on to play in college. Although they do not have such big numbers as basketball and football, an estimated 144,024 play golf in high school, and 158,151 play tennis.

Only  8,069 play golf in college and 7,838 play tennis. The numbers here are quite low as well. The NCAA college tennis players in the last decade or so have been foreigners. This is one of the major reasons for the decline of the sport at this level.

Soccer is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States and over 400,000 play at the high school level. Only 25,072 go on to play in college and only 1.3% play for Division I schools. Furthermore, the chances of becoming a professional soccer player get more and more low.

When student-athletes are in college, they have to be able to balance their time and resources between academics, training, tournaments, socials, and more. It is not an easy task to represent a college and try to make a career out of it.

One has to be very dedicated, hard-working, disciplined, and consistent. Athletes usually have to sacrifice a lot to make a career in a sport that they love and balance all other things all along.