I saw this question recently asked on QUORA and it made me think. As I’ve written before, I’m not into sports, so for me to ponder this question it wouldn’t even be about what sport I would most enjoy playing, I would pick whichever would be the easiest way for me to earn the most money. And thus the answer is pretty clear:

That’s right, BOXING!

I’d want to be the greatest boxer in the world! And I’ll explain why.

First, I wouldn’t want to play any team sport for several reason. Number one of which is that your success of failure will often depend on well the rest of your team is. You can be the greatest player in your sport, but if you’re on a crappy team, you’ll still lose. And even if people recognize that you’re on a bad team, there will still be those who blame you for not being enough of a “team leader,” and not inspiring your team mates to do better, or whatever. Who needs that pressure?

But with a single-person sport like boxing, I at least have more control over the outcome. I can make sure that I train as hard as I can, and stay focused and know what I’m doing. And if I lose, then at least I can accept that either I didn’t do my best, or that the other man was just better than me. But that’s still better than doing the best that I could in a game, but then still losing because some of my teammates didn’t do their best, or because we had a bad coach.

Another major strike against team sports is the amount of traveling we’d have to do and games to play. Basketball season is 5 months, with an average of 82 games, half of which are on the road. Baseball season is 6 months with an average of 162 games. Football is the shortest with only 16 games played during 4-month season, but that’s also probably the most physically demanding sport, which is why football players tend to have much shorter careers than the other team pro-sports (and why the majority of the players end up broke soon after their careers are over).

Those are the major team sports in America, but there’s also Hockey with about 82 games over a 6 month season, and Soccer (what the rest of the world calls “football”) is around 32 games in 7 months. Even with home games, all of these sports involve a lot of traveling. And that’s just not something that I particularly enjoy, especially not for long stints. Whether it’s by bus or plane, but constantly having to pack and go to new hotel rooms and all that stuff just doesn’t sound appealing at all.

Even Tennis and Golf, which are single-person sports that include the same advantages as boxing (it’s all dependent on me, and how well I train, etc.), require a lot of traveling. So that’s why boxing is a better choice. I may have to do a lot of traveling and fighting in order to build up my reputation, to get to a title shot, but once I become a champion, then it becomes much easier. As a top boxing champion, provided I also do the work to promote myself properly, I could fight once or twice a year, and make upwards of $40 million for each fight. My role model in this profession would be this guy:

That’s right, Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr.

To be clear, I think that the man is absolute scum as a human being. His history of violence against women is unforgivable, as I’ve said before. But I’m talking strictly of his sports acumen. The many is/was a great boxer, and knew how to promote his fights so that people paid to see them. Last year, he made $275 million, more than the next three top athletes made combined, from one fight, the fight against MMA champion Don McGregor, which I didn’t even think he needed to do. That’s incredible.

So not only could I make more money for less work as a boxer than in any other sport, I could have all my fights in Las Vegas. And I live in Southern California, which is just a one-hour plane-ride away, so traveling wouldn’t be a problem. Or I might just go ahead and move to Vegas, to some big mansion with a fully equipped gym inside. I can train right there in my own home, and then fight in my city. Perfect!