Would you rather be a great athlete, artist, or musician?
Probably a tie between artist and athlete. If you’re a great athlete, you are easily and instantly recognized, acknowledged, and rewarded for your talents. Athletic talent isn’t very subjective; you’re either good or you’re not. Meanwhile, it’s much much harder to get noticed as a talented artist or musician as those are very subjective topics. Also, these industries are very influenced by the mainstream culture and makes it hard to be very successful if you have a unique voice.
The sports industry searches the world over for great athletic talent, but great artistic and musical talent has to promote themselves and shove themselves down peoples’ throats to get even a small glance.