I feel like part of the equation should be size of the pool of athletes you're competing against in your sport. Dominating a sport that's only played by a small number of athletes in 2 countries globally isn't as impressive as dominating a sport that's played everywhere.
And there are sports that have more than a hundred million active players, but that's not really accurate as well, because a lot of those are going to be casual athletes who aren't out there trying to be the GOAT. I think if you could produce stats on the numbers of high-school/college-age athletes in each sport globally, that would give you a comparison of just how competitive each sport is. Soccer, Cricket, Basketball, and Baseball, for example, are drawing from a much larger pool of aspiring GOATs than relatively regional sports American Football, Hockey, or those that have a relatively small pool of athletes entering the competitive system (golf). Even track and field is widely-practiced enough at a late-adolescent level that anyone with serious potential will get identified and put moved into competitive systems. Other sports like Badminton may have similarly strong competitive pools.
That doesn't mean that the GOAT athlete needs to come from one of those sports, but I don't think you can automatically say being a consensus GOAT in a low-participation sport puts you ahead of a disputed GOAT in a high participation sport.
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