Common reasons I’ve heard people say:
- “This is because Olympic athletes work harder than academic Olympiad competitors.” 💪
- “Oh no. It’s because people at the top are discriminating against academic Olympiads. AKA: Tanish Bilish” 😱
- “Nah. The Olympics are held every four years, while Olympiads (e.g., IMO and IPhO) are organized annually.” 🧐
While those arguments may contain a grain of truth, I think the answer is much more fundamental. Let’s look at it from an economic perspective to see if we can explain it.
Supply and Demand
It’s about attention. Olympic sports attract far more public interest than academic Olympiads. You know very well that attention is currency in our world. More attention means more funding opportunities, either from government or private sponsorships. You’ve probably noticed that Olympic winners get more advertisement deals from businesses, while I’m not aware of many Olympiad champions getting similar deals. Nobody is forcing those businesses to give money to Olympic winners. Businesses understand that these athletes get more attention, and they certainly do. Take the 2024 Paris Olympics as an example: BBC coverage alone attracted more than 36 million viewers in the UK. This is the same reason why male football players earn more than female players on average—simply because men’s football matches attract more viewers. While it’s unfortunate that women earn less, the reality is that funding follows demand. It’s not about how hard you work; if it were, construction workers and coal miners would be among the highest-paid. Please note that I’m not saying they deserve to be paid less. It’s nearly impossible to determine who deserves what. What we fundamentally want is equal opportunity for people regardless of their gender or any other arbitrary qualities.
Freedom Before Equality
On a separate note, I’m against the whole idea of government funding in such areas because it centralizes decision-making by giving all power to a few people who decide who gets paid and how much. Instead, taxpayers should decide where their money goes. People who care about these fields can choose to support them. Saying that everyone should receive an equal amount of payment will lead us nowhere unless we first secure the freedom to choose.
I always remember this quote from Milton Friedman regarding equality and freedom:
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”