Why can't Cal play in the 'smart football player market'?

[sakky]

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I have a hard time imagining how this can change though. People aren’t paid because they’re intelligent - they’re paid because someone thinks they can make them money or provide immediate service. I hope you can correct me on this sakky, because it might be encouraging.</p>

<p>People aren’t paid just for being good at football - they’re paid for being good at football and in a position where they entertain tons of people. Roger Federer is a superstar tennis player, but he’s not paid for how good he is - he’s paid for the crowds he draws probably (sure, marginally he gets paid more for winning a tournament than being the runner up, maybe, but that’s probably not how most of his money accrues). And arguably, appearing in advertisements, etc, is a significant monetary addition, because again, someone thinks his doing so is going to make them money. </p>

<p>This is why many people whose skills are not anywhere as rare as those of a world class professor at Berkeley may still make more money - due to demand, or perceived demand, and because they play into the hands of people who simply have a lot of money to throw in their direction.

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<p>What’s odd is that “value” as defined by the ability to draw interest is not an inherent quality of the activity in question but is rather a pure social construct that can and has been reshaped and redirected by various cultures. </p>

<p>Take chess, an activity that shares numerous connections with mathematics, where former world champions such as Emanuel Lasker and Max Euwe having been professional mathematicians, and which has itself spurred significant mathematical research in combinatorics, topology, computational algorithms, and (naturally) game theory. Yet chess, like mathematics, tends to be an activity derided in US culture as being the preserve of antisocial nerds (or even mentally ill anti-Semitic cranks in the sad case of Bobby Fischer). But professional chess is considered to be a popular sport in Europe ,especially the former Soviet Union, and Asia. The 2010 World Chess Championship split a prize fund of 2 million euro, not to mention the significant brand endorsement fees earned by the top contenders. For many years, current champion Viswanathan Anand was the richest ‘athlete’ in India - richer than even the nation’s top cricket stars. </p>

<p>Yet it’s hard to argue that chess inherently has any more social “value” than does mathematics in general. In fact, it almost certainly has less. Chess is just two guys mentally battling about a fixed set of rules. Sure, more strategies and more insights can be discovered, but only within the preset rules. But mathematics as a whole can be used to discover a wide swath of insights. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, chess pays far more than does pure mathematics, and indeed, Emanuel Lasker resorted to financially supporting his mathematics work through playing chess exhibitions. For whatever reason, mathematics work doesn’t really seem to capture the imagination of the public such that people would pay to watch mathematicians work - almost certainly due to a lack of marketing promotion. As much as I appreciate chess, I have to admit that a live championship match is pretty boring. Nevertheless, the world chess championship attracts large TV audiences throughout many regions of the world.</p>