I don't think it is. A NFL player is hired to perform well for just a few hours a year, the rest doesn't matter. A live musician needs to play well during the few hours of concert they have each year, what they do when the public is not there doesn't matter.
It means all of their job is concentrated in a few hours per year, so they have to be damn good at it. In order to do that, they need training, which is most of their working time. For most other jobs, there is much less time to train, and it doesn't matter as much because what counts is the average performance, not just a few key moments.
For programming, the parallel would be competitive programming. A competitive programmer will spend days studying algorithms like no one else, because it will matter for the hour or two of the competition. For typical programmers the loss of productivity for not knowing the algorithms is less than the time spent studying them.
I think it was confusing people because pro sports players are often paid by an org or team that will fire them if they don't show up for the endless hours of training. They also get huge amounts of resources to make that training more effective.
Versus, say, a touring rock band that gets a cut of the performance revenue. I don't think there's anyone paying them a multi-year contract salary.
saying training is work is also confusing, because just doing your work is not training either. I'm kinda angry at the school system for never teaching me about dedicated practice. For the longest time, I did believe practicing something was just doing it over and over.
It means all of their job is concentrated in a few hours per year, so they have to be damn good at it. In order to do that, they need training, which is most of their working time. For most other jobs, there is much less time to train, and it doesn't matter as much because what counts is the average performance, not just a few key moments.
For programming, the parallel would be competitive programming. A competitive programmer will spend days studying algorithms like no one else, because it will matter for the hour or two of the competition. For typical programmers the loss of productivity for not knowing the algorithms is less than the time spent studying them.