Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team, but generally at a considerably lower rate than a full-time professional athlete.
Large blue-collar employers such as factories and shipyards often fielded baseball and basketball teams, with players receiving full-time salaries comparable to other employees.
By the 1940s, baseball split off into separate truly amateur softball teams, sometimes sponsored by employers, and an expanded system of fully professionalized minor leagues whose lower ranks included many former industrial players.
Eligibility for participation in the Olympics in some sports is still dependent upon maintaining a purely amateur status (although far less so than was previously the case), and such athletes may be supported by government money, business sponsorships, and other systems.
[3] The National Lacrosse League, whose teams also typically play only one game per week, pays a salary that is enough to be considered fully professional, but players also are able to pursue outside employment to supplement their income.
The lowest levels of organized baseball are also effectively semi-professional, as the short summer seasons and low salaries require players to hold jobs in the offseason to make ends meet.
Full professionalism for women is still in the planning stages; top female players often depend on other sources of income (such as coaching and physical training), and many attend university or college while playing.