{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/athletes-and-sports-competitors/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Athletes and Sports Competitors",
    "soc_code": "27-2021",
    "category": "Media",
    "us_employment": 15070,
    "median_annual_wage": 66710
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 71,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 19,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 2,
    "trust_premium": 18,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Sprinting a 4.4 forty, absorbing contact, and executing a play call under a shot clock cannot be tokenized — the 19 rather than 20 reflects that opponent-tendency film review and periodized training plans, which used to be your own homework, now arrive pre-chewed from an analytics department.",
    "embodiment": "The job is performed in stadiums, on ice, in mud, in heat, against opponents actively trying to physically stop you — there is no version of this executed remotely, and injury risk is an occupational condition rather than an exception.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no licence to compete; league eligibility, a contract, and a drug-testing consent form are the gate, and a team can waive you Tuesday morning with no credential to fall back on.",
    "trust_premium": "Fans, sponsors, and jersey buyers pay for a specific named person's identity and story — a Curry stepback and a G-League stepback are the same physics with wildly different revenue — but the 18 accounts for the fact that in team sports the franchise brand carries a share of the loyalty you would take with you.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You own live reads — when to shoot, when to concede the bunt, when to say the hamstring is done — but coaching staffs set the game plan, playbooks constrain the option set, and consequences of a bad call are a loss rather than someone's ruin, which caps this well below the licensed-professional tier."
  },
  "rationale": "The product is a human body competing in real time in front of people who care specifically that it is a human body — there is no screen-work core for AI to eat. Physical performance, in-game reads, and audience connection are the entire job; the only AI-touched pieces are film study, scouting reports, and training-load analytics, which are support functions handled by staff. The real career risks here are injury, roster math, and a national median that hides a brutal pay pyramid — not automation.",
  "outlook": "Live human competition stays fully insulated from AI through the 2030s; the constraints on this career remain roster scarcity, injury, and a short earning window, with AI showing up as training and scouting tooling rather than a replacement.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "League/union rules that formally bar synthetic or AI-generated athlete likenesses from substituting for live competition or broadcast content — e.g. NIL and digital-replica clauses of the type SAG-AFTRA won in 2023 being written into NFLPA/NBPA/MLBPA CBAs, plus state digital-replica statutes (Tennessee ELVIS Act, California AB 1836) applied to athlete likeness. This locks the paying audience to the physical human and monetizes it.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Expanded on-field decision authority as officiating and coaching are partly automated: if automated ball-strike systems and AI play-call suggestion tools shift the remaining discretionary calls to players (e.g. MLB's ABS challenge system giving batters/catchers the challenge right, 2025 spring training and planned 2026 rollout), the athlete personally owns consequential ambiguous calls rather than the bench.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Anti-doping and integrity regimes that place personal, non-delegable liability on the competitor — WADA strict liability already does this, and any expansion of sports-betting integrity rules imposing personal licensure on athletes (as several state gaming commissions license participants) would make the individual a legally named, sanctionable signer.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Already 71/100 with task_resistance and embodiment near max; there is almost no headroom on the capability side and liability_shield will never behave like a professional license — the binding career risk is the pay pyramid and injury, which no dimension here scores."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 11150,
        "wage": 51370
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 10800,
        "wage": 50650
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 11330,
        "wage": 51370
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 8380,
        "wage": 50850
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 12320,
        "wage": 77300
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 11930,
        "wage": 94270
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 14930,
        "wage": 70280
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 14370,
        "wage": 62360
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 15070,
        "wage": 66710
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 35.2,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}