The life of an athlete may involve a lot of hard work. Successful athletes often have great lives with a lot of adoration and good careers, but nobody can deny the hard work it takes. Thousands of hours of running, training, and working to try and be the best leave people with a desire for hobbies where they can switch off.

Athletes’ hobbies may surprise you, some of them are into some pretty obscure and niche areas of interest. Really, they’re no different from the rest of society, but those who live such active lives may well have certain hobbies they are drawn to.

Blackjack

Athletes and sports stars are regularly spotted playing casino games. Some sports stars and athletes have even signed up as ambassadors for casino sites, and the hobby remains popular. Online casino gaming has made it even more popular, as people can log in and play wherever and whenever they want.

Blackjack has an element of strategy to it to appeal to the nature of people who are athletes and sportspeople, but it also has a big element of fortune and is played as a method of entertainment. Finding the best online blackjack games may also lead to finding certain variations, some of which have gameplay tweaks. Blackjack is still evolving in the digital age with developers and websites making new varieties and slightly different gameplay options.

Blackjack is also appealing to people in their spare time as it is pretty simple to understand, so it doesn’t require a lot of rule-reading or complex gameplay. Games like this that have been common and popular for hundreds of years clearly have a level of entertainment that appeals to a number of people.

Golf

You might think that the last thing people who are physically active all the time want to do on their day off is walk around a golf course, but it is definitely one of the more common hobbies. Soccer players, for instance, are renowned for being golfing fans. Gareth Bale may be the ultimate example, and there was even talk of him going professional after his soccer career was over.

Soccer players tend to earn good money and have the time to spend around the top golf courses, as they may not spend all day in training (they need their rest, too). Soccer and golf have long been allies in this way, and you’ll regularly see soccer players posting on Instagram about their golfing pursuits, with top global megastars like Bale and Harry Kane being avid golfers.

Gaming

Blackjack has already been covered as one form of gaming that many sportspeople and athletes may enjoy. Gaming has more different facets though, and many athletes get involved with console gaming and PC gaming.

Downtime is for enjoying, but it can also be important for athletes not to do anything too strenuous, and this may mean something like playing a game where they don’t need to exert themselves physically could be an interesting hobby.

A surprising number of athletes and sportspeople even play video games based on the sport they already play! Soccer star Antoine Griezmann famously has a Football Manager career where he shares updates of how he is doing as a manager rather than as a player. Popular games like Fortnite have also proven to be a big hit with a lot of athletes, and some people have even reported running into superstars in their online games.

Fashion

Athletes with the world at their feet and a peak level of fitness can be attractive propositions to work with fashion brands. Fashion Weeks in London, Paris, Milan, and the US see athletes sporting some of the biggest brands and attending for their own enjoyment. Naturally, they want to look their best.

Some of the huge contracts being handed out in NFL, MLB, and other sports mean that top athletes and sportspeople may be in a strong position to wear the very best brands, and some top athletes are also ‘influencers’. Fashion brands may work with them, providing free clothing on joint promotions to take advantage of the millions of followers they have. Lionel Messi, for instance, has over 500 million followers on Instagram, an impressive percentage of people who have even signed up for the Instagram app.

Conclusion

Some athletes have unusual hobbies, we’ve seen stamp collecting, fishing, caring for pets…the list goes on. Fashion, gaming, and even golf and other sports are among the big hits for people who are successful in their athletic field and need something to do in their spare time. Superstars draw some interest when it comes to what they’re doing away from the track or the field, and while hobbies can be virtually anything, there are definitely some patterns in what people tend to enjoy.