<p>I guess the kind of math that can be approached in a competition is very different from what someone like Terence Tao does, which is not understandable to most professional mathematicians. However, it is true that the general public could be made more aware of this kind of star if mathematics were even on the people’s minds, which your proposed kind of game show would help with.</p>
<p>There are of course math competitions like the IMO, but I don’t know how one would ‘watch’ those, so much as await results. But I guess competitions based more on speed than on difficulty could be on TV.</p>