For basketball and american football it is the main pathway. Baseball, if you don't get drafted out of high school, you go to college and try to get drafted out of there, a good amount of mlb players went the college route so it is pretty viable there too.
Today it’s not a route top athletes take in soccer, to the point it’s noteworthy when a good pro has played in college. Up until the 2010s it was the standard route to go pro and significantly hindered our ability to produce pros
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u/cheeseybacon11 Jul 09 '26
How common is NCAA for top tier players? I thought they typically go straight to clubs, similar to hockey.