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

quote:

---

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.

---

Since there was no TV in those days, how else do you propose we gauge popularity in that time? Do you doubt that people would have watched sports on TV at a time when people listened to sports on radio way more than they do today?

quote:

---

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

---

Of course more young people played sports at a time before soccer, Title IX and a bunch of other things came into play, but I'm talking about the entire sports landscape, I'm talking about the sports that Jim Thorpe played. Do you doubt that baseball was America's #1 sport in his day? Do you doubt that track & field was much bigger in his day than it is today? I'll concede that pro football of Jim Thorpe's era was just a minor sport, but that's not the case with college football. As for participation, high schools have been fielding male sports teams in football, basketball, baseball and track & field for over 100 years, so I disagree with you on this point too.