Low birth rates aren't the only issue for sports

When people say sports are struggling, low birth rates are often used as a universal excuse.
If we must point to population issues, to be more precise,
it's that "the number of athletes willing to participate in various sports is decreasing."
A simple decline in the surface-level population doesn't cause immediate problems.
There are European countries with populations of barely 10 or 20 million that dominate sports.
Korea's population is 1/32 of China's and 1/3 of Japan's;
if we are scoring double the gold medals compared to Japan, honestly, we aren't performing poorly considering our population size.
India can't even win 20 gold medals with their population.
In Korea, even if you don't become an athlete in an unpopular sport, there are many ways to make a living.
If someone wants to be a celebrity, they can make a living as an idol, a YouTuber, or by making Instagram Shorts.
It is a country where, if you lack that kind of passion, you can still earn a decent income just by working at a reasonably sized company.
So, it is becoming increasingly difficult to approach unpopular sports that lack spotlight through sheer "hungry spirit."
It's not as if our race is inherently superior at sports, either.