The Path to Becoming an Athletic Scout For Pro Sports

by Richard Janvrin, May 16, 2025

Breaking into professional sports is one of the hardest career paths to pursue. However, the idea of becoming an athletic scout excites passionate fans and former athletes.

The scouts and scouting department help identify the stars of tomorrow, who become household names that fans purchase jerseys of. Whether you’re dreaming of spotting future MVPs in the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL, the road to becoming a pro scout requires a level of dedication, knowledge, and persistence that may not be for everyone. As the influence of data analytics and NFL online sportsbooks grows, the way scouts and teams evaluate talent constantly changes.

Below, I’ll navigate how to set yourself up for success in your quest to become a scout.

Let’s dive in.

• What Scouts Do Behind the Scenes
• Learn The Sport As If You Played It
• Education Helps
• Getting Your Foot In the Door
• Become a Report-Writing Machine
• Stay On Top of Evolving Technology
• Does He Hold Up?

What Scouts Do Behind the Scenes

Before we dig into the exact path of how to become a sports scout, let’s first discuss what scouts actually do so you can gauge whether this is a career path you want to pursue.

There’s more to sports scouting than just watching games.

For example, as an NFL scout, here’s a rundown of things you can expect to encounter:

• Travel extensively during the regular seasons to scout talent.
• Watch film at various times, including early in the morning.
• Attend live practices
• Meet with the coaching staff, school officials, and other staff members.
• Write weekly updates on players
• Evaluate and gauge on-field and off-field intangibles
• Multiple visits to schools throughout the season
• File formal scouting reports after months of work
• Attend live college games
• Investigate suspected character concerns
• Use social media to further investigate players

So, it’s not only a full-time job, but it’s also no 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday excursion. There’s a lot of time spent on the road away from family and friends to help identify the talent of tomorrow.

There are numerous visits to rental car places, consumption of unhealthy food, irregular sleep schedules, and more.

Also, there’s pressure. Your reports could influence multi-million-dollar decisions. If they pay off, your career ascends. If they don’t, you could be out of a job. That’s the reality.

Learn The Sport As If You Played It

While you don’t need to have played a sport to become one of the best sports scouts, it certainly helps. However, you need to make up for that lack of experience by learning the sport as if you were a decade-long pro veteran.

That means being able to review film of players and identify nuances, performance, and traits that make players stand out or fall down draft boards.

You’ll also need to learn terminology. For example, in the NFL, learning things like what a “3-tech” is for a defensive lineman or “anchor” for an offensive lineman.

Education Helps

Let’s be clear about something: There’s no college degree in sports scouting. In fact, no formal education is required. That said, if you earn a degree in some sort of high-level math or analytics, this could give you a leg up as a scout to help break down numbers at a level that some of your colleagues—or competition—may not be able to.

However, beyond that, understanding human behavior is important, too. This could be referred to as “street smarts.” Recognizing a player’s attitude, motor, and leadership could be what separates some players from others with a similar on-the-field resume.

Getting Your Foot In the Door

Finding a way to get inside a professional sports franchise building to work as a scout isn’t as simple as browsing Indeed or LinkedIn, applying, and going from there. There are no “sports scouts” listings.

For pro scouts, it often starts with an internship with a college or even a farm team. If there’s an A, AA, or AAA baseball team in your area, that could be a good entry point for those interested in baseball.

For sports like football, where there’s no formal farm system, it could be a local college or even a spring football team, such as one in the UFL.

These can sometimes be unpaid or extremely low-paying positions.

Also, if you do get your foot in the door, it won’t be glamorous. It could be something like tagging a film for specific types of plays. For example, the department may want cut-ups of all the times a quarterback faced pressure from an opposing defense. Another job could be organizing that film or collecting data.

While doing this, you’ll network and meet people in higher positions who could recognize your work ethic, drive, and passion and offer more opportunities to build your reputation within the organization or across the level of the sport you’re involved with.

Become a Report-Writing Machine

Once you’re able to start writing any kind of report, this is the time to hustle, grind, and put in the work.

The goal: Be quick while maintaining a high level of detail that captures the essence of a player, including traits, long-term upside, intangibles, what the player does well, and more.

For example, if you’re scouting a quarterback, instead of saying something like “he’s a good quarterback,” get much more detailed with something like “Pushes the ball well downfield; has an excellent feel in the pocket; diagnoses coverage well; progresses through his reads quickly.”

Getting into the fine details like that will help teams understand more about the player and separate you from others in sports scouting.

Stay On Top of Evolving Technology

As time goes on, so too does technology. And with that, some technology can benefit your scouting ability. This could include film software like Hudl, utilizing Excel spreadsheets, or diving into data from sources like Pro Football Focus.

Sources like PFF can help an athletic scout line up what you see on film with production. There are also sites like MockDraftable for football, where you can see a database of testing numbers.

For example, if you see a player on film that you think is slow but runs a 4.40-yard dash, that’s an opportunity to revisit the player’s film to see what you may have missed.

Reputation Matters

If you’re unable to get started as an athletic scout with an organization, there are plenty of ways to get noticed, whether that’s through a YouTube channel, a scouting blog, or both.

This can involve sports scouts attending games to write up reports or finding game films to assess players.

Continue to build a portfolio and network when possible, such as at events like the Senior Bowl or East-West Shrine Bowl, and before you know it, you may be in contact with opportunities.

Maintain a strong reputation, and don’t let anything stop you from pursuing your dream, even if it’s with YouTube or TikTok videos. So, if someone asks, “how to become a scout for sports?” the answer can sometimes be as simple as “start.”