re: Could Jim Thorpe have played professional sports if he was 25 today?

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The NFL and the NBA weren't as popular in the 1940's as they were today, but MLB, boxing and track & field were more popular than they are today, and college football was as popular as it is today. In the 1920's, the USC-Notre Dame football series regularly drew over 100,000 fans and Knute Rockne was every bit as popular as Bear Bryant and Nick Saban, if not more popular.

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You are talking about attendance. Things are way different now. First of all, showing up at an event was the only way you could see it in the 1920's. There is TV now.

And college football was not as popular as it is today. Sure, USC and Notre Dame may have drawn 100,000... but there are a ton of colleges around the country that draw 80,000 - 100,000+ every single week of the college football season. Plus games are watched on TV by millions.

But I'm not even talking about attendance.

I'm talking about participation. There are so many more young people competing in sports today compared to 100 years ago. It's not even close.

There were people not even that long ago who made peanuts playing sports for a living. It wasn't a preferred lifestyle.