AUSTIN, Texas — If you want to make it in America as a pro athlete, the playbook's pretty simple: Get to the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL or (lately) MLS.
But lacrosse players, women's softball players, curlers and others in less-celebrated team sports? They all need day jobs to support their athletic habits. That thinking is almost always correct — but not quite always. A select few American athletes do make a living off the sports that never hit talk radio. But it's not just because they're extra talented; it's because they're extra strategic.
See also: A YouTube Legend Battles for His Basketball Future
Paul Rabil is one of those athletes. America's average self-proclaimed sports nut probably doesn't know the man's name, but Rabil plays for the Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse (MLL). After he first turned pro — even though he was drafted first overall by the Cannons following a stellar career at Johns Hopkins University — Rabil moonlighted for a real estate company.
But he's since built himself into a one-man lacrosse brand, and the only pro making a robust living off the sport. (He says he's "comfortable;" Bloomberg calls him a millionaire.)
Rabil, who is 28 years old, stopped by the Mashable House at SXSW over the weekend to tell us how he does it, revealing a drive and savvy more often associated with a startup founder than a professional jock.
We've turned his unlikely path to supporting himself into a step-by-step guide for finding mainstream success in little-hyped sports.
Rabil didn't get to where he is because nobody cares about the sport. Lacrosse is much like women's softball and, in Rabil's words, other "sports that have high participation at the youth level but low visibility at the professional level."
That means all those kids need players to look up to, and are in the market for all sorts of equipment and apparel. And their parents, most likely, have money to spend. So just because you don't see Rabil and his peers on SportsCenter every night, to assume no one is paying attention would be a big mistake.
Of course, none of this matters if you don't have game, so that's where our next step comes in.

Rabil's a pro athlete just like any other. That means daily off-season workouts with a conditioning team, including weights, cardio and plenty of skill work. In short: He busts his butt.
It's paid off, too. He was a two-time high school All-American and played for one of the nation's top collegiate programs in Johns Hopkins, where he became a four-time collegiate All-American. Since then he's won championships in two pro leagues, set MLL's season scoring record and starred for Team USA. Press and fans have referred to him as the "LeBron James of lacrosse."
Rabil is active on Vine, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in addition to his spiffy personal site. He uses the platforms to show off his curiosity, humor and well-rounded personality:
My takeaways from #SXSW: Interactive fans, 2nd screen, #SportsMatter, wearable tech, @shaq is king, @mcuban's rapid fire, WWE, & habaneros.
— Paul Rabil (@PaulRabil) March 9, 2014
The value of online engagement isn't lost on Rabil, who says he wouldn't have the opportunity to be where he is now without the Internet, given lacrosse's lack of mainstream press coverage.
Talking to Rabil can feel more like a conversation with a business development executive than the average professional athlete. It's no coincidence he was the only pro athlete we spotted actually sitting in on panels as a regular audience member at SX Sports this weekend.
To get a better sense of Rabil's business mind, here's how he describes young lacrosse players: "It's a highly addictive market. Most of the kids in the space are very affluent, highly-educated passion drivers."
And here's how he describes the difference in attention between lacrosse and more mainstream sports: "The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL get day-to-day impressions from 24-hour sports networks. They have the constant impressions from SportsCenter that lacrosse just doesn't have yet."
Ironically, Rabil says, he developed his athletic entrepreneurship while being assigned to evaluate business models as a junior real estate employee who couldn't earn a full-time living off his sport. "I inadvertently began to evaluate the sport of lacrosse and its future potential," Rabil says.

Rabil in 2008, celebrating a Johns Hopkins win over Duke in the collegiate lacrosse semifinals.
Image: Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
World-class ability, a tireless work ethic, a student of business and Internet savvy. What's not to love from a sponsor's perspective?
Rabil ballpark-estimates he only makes about 10% of his income from his actual playing contract, with sponsorships making up about half, and his own business — a web-based lifestyle and training regimen for young players — the remaining 40%.
Rabil tells Mashable social media plays a special role in attracting a stable of sponsors led by Red Bull: "If you can capture your own content, even if it takes the help of a film crew, and then deliver it yourself to fans over social media, when a marketer sees that kind of engagement it's innately attractive versus someone who only has appeal for what they do on the field."
Rabil's success as a one-man brand and marketing powerhouse doesn't exist in a vacuum. He sees himself as part of a bigger movement in lacrosse, which industry insiders hype as America's fastest-growing sport.
"I want to be a part of clearing some of the obstacles that lacrosse faces as a sport trying to break into the mainstream," he says. "Even just right now, it's important that I'm able to tell kids out there that there actually is a full-time professional lacrosse player."
Paul Rabil's not a guy you'd want to bet against. And who knows — if he succeeds on his mission, the next King James of lacrosse might just become a household name.