Aspiring pro athletes born in Georgia tend to have a good chance of making it big, according to a new study compiled by ticketing vendor Rukkus.
California, Florida, Texas and Georgia, respectively, led the nation for the most homegrown pro athletes, according to the study. However, when it comes to how many athletes each state produces per 100,000 residents, Louisiana beat them all. Georgia came in second with a homegrown pro athlete rate of 1.90 per capita, according to the study.
To learn where the talent comes from, analysts at Rukkus examined the active rosters of the five major team sports in the U.S.: the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS.
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Using hometown data from Stats Inc., analysts plotted 5,273 players on world maps.
They found that more than one quarter of all professional athletes playing in America come from outside the country.
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Rounding out the top five states with the most homegrown active pro athletes are Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.
In Rukkus’ city breakdown, Atlanta came in at No. 7 with 35 homegrown pro athletes currently active in one of the major leagues — MLB (5), NFL (22), NBA (6) and MLS (2).
Miami, Florida, topped the cities list with 72 pro athletes total.
More about the Rukkus study and its methodology.
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