Pro sports is a weird one... I follow American football and over the years I've seen various players who by all accounts have the talent, but for whatever reason have short careers, don't get much playing time, etc. I remember watching this running back a few years ago, where every time he got on the field would get 7+ yards at a time, but the team only sporadically put him on the field, let alone gave him the ball. Likewise, there are plenty of players who get on the field because they were a first round draft pick and thus the team has a lot riding on them financially - which may or may not actually pan out. So while yes, professional sports are mostly about merit, I'm not sure we can say that's the only thing at play.

Never said it was. But the implication was that Sports are more meritocratic than Tech. You don't win MVP of your league through Nepotism but you could easily get $20M+ in VC funding that way.

And likewise, my point wasn't to put words in your mouth, but rather to implicitly agree that nepotism (or something like it) manifests even in something seemingly so merit-oriented as pro sports.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis says yes.

This is from memory, but baseball scouts historically rely heavily on athletic appearances (what they think a good pitcher, hitter, etc looks like), more than hard stats.

Wasn't the whole point of Moneyball that the A's were able to perform far above their level and salary cap based on evaluating players on hard stats and not appearances? Not sure what your point is.

Yep - the real world bows to no one's preconceived notions...

Yes but that good looking .220 hitter is not going to stick around much with that batting average.