What percentage of the US population are professional athletes?
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%