Where the analogy applies to soccer is if you looked at all the folks playing video games in the US (which I imagine is an astronomical number) you'd be mistaken assume all of those players are striving to put in the time and effort to earn a professional wage playing video games. We look at youth participation rates in the US that seem to be impressive, but these participants are not engaging with soccer as a long-term viable profession and are therefore not putting in the time and effort it would take to earn a professional wage doing it. They are also not, necessarily, engaging in soccer as culture (watching matches live or on TV, talking about players etc); it's merely a past-time.



The analogy I always use is ping-pong. I know lots of people who can and have played ping-pong and very few that are aspirant to achieve in the sport as a profession (or could name a great ping-pong player).

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