Out of all of those games, only 1 (football) requires large quantities of outside-the-field work.

For the rest, even when you are practicing or "working," you are still in essence playing the game. Fielding 100 ground balls is still playing baseball. Shooting 100 jumpers, or doing dribbling drills for 30 minutes, you still have a ball in your hand. Passing drills (lacrosse, hockey, basketball), still part of the game. This is akin in WoW to farming your mats or doing daily quests, or maybe even spending some time working on a dummy. You don't need to study or utilize spreadsheets that utilize calculus to work on your game.

And as a former football player, trust me, there are very few that enjoy off-the-field studying and work. The ones that do enjoy it end up playing professionally, or become superstars. You can tell a guy like Peyton Manning loves football, and enjoys that type of work. But how many quarterbacks get drafted high, and then wash out? Most of them have the talent, but they don't have the drive to go that extra mile.

I think some out-of-game things are worthwhile, like looking up lore on wowpedia, or searching for, say, 2 handed axe upgrades to your main weapon. But those don't require many minutes or possibly hours of study and importing and fiddling with simulation settings.

This is why I advocate for rawr - simple to import, simple to use. Anything beyond that feels like work.