But again - it’s the 1% that made it there. Only ~450 players are in the NRL. Many of them earn the minimum allowed of 100k still, and their careers average like 3 years. That’s the 1%.

You're missing my point I think.

Sure, a not insignificant number of sports stars have a background that's considered lower class, but the number of people living below that poverty line that will become sports stars is so low I'm not even sure how many zeros go between 0.[...]1%

Even if all of those people were top class athletes, there's only room in the sports world for a few hundred of them at most.

It's not a realistic career path, it's a lottery that requires high level athletic skill.