While OT, here are some average gross wages in European countries (in USD/year, according to wikipedia):

Switzerland 81936
Norway 77148
Denmark 75204
Liechtenstein 70200
Luxembourg 68028
Netherlands 60192
Germany 56880
Belgium 49428
Iceland 48096
Finland 47856
Sweden 47400
Ireland 45180
France 44352
Austria 38088
United Kingdom 37056
Italy 32604
Cyprus 30036
Andorra 29604
Spain 27084
Slovenia 23604
Malta 19860
Greece 18780
Croatia 16344
Portugal 15984
Czech 14664
Estonia 12828
Poland 12732
Slovakia 11760
Hungary 11544
Montenegro 10980
Turkey 10884
Latvia 10824
Russia 10344
Bosnia 10344
Lithuania 9432
Serbia 7896
Kazakhstan 7884
Macedonia 7680
Romania 7296
Bulgaria 6060
Belarus 5940
Azerbaijan 5532
Ucraine 4584
Georgia 4536
Albania 4020
Moldova 3408

(most of the data is from 2011 or 2012, but some are older)

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Thx

last OT for me. Medium and average income is not the same. Medium is half of the people earn more, half less. Average is a bit biased with the very high income that push the number up.

I don't know if medium is the correct word in english in fact, maybe this is confusing.

I must say that I found this information to be quite a shock. Up until now, I had assumed that people like Lee Sedol and Lee Changho were household names (They are in my house ), and would be doing endorsements for fast cars, computers or at least for the Korean version of Wheaties.

So Baduk players aren't comparable to sports stars in the West?

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That's median (I believe)

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Switzerland has almost 4x the per capita GDP of South Korea, so you should factor that in.

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It doesn't look like they compare to sports stars...but a comparison to all professional athletes would probably be reasonable.

I don't think Baduk players are comparable to sports stars in Korea! Notice how most of them just marry other baduk players, instead of k-pop stars, models, etc... They have nothing on K-League players.

If you look at this 2011 ESPN list, the Baduk players aren't doing that shabby.


It's all over the map, though. There's a guy who regularly makes almost $1M or more at darts, true. But the top players in the Baduk list still do better than the top men's surfer.

And the top Baduk players make more than the top competitive eater, Joey Chestnut.

Strange list. How did they pick which sports (and the term is used very loosely, as eating proves) are included and which are left out?

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If I had to guess I would say availability of data. Since it was coming from ESPN, they probably already had reports on all of these national / international event, and this list was just compiling what they already more or less knew. It mentions "Official salary data unavailable for sports not listed". For instance, they omitted track and field. This is probably because even stars in the professional track and field athletes make relatively little money from contests and the lion's share comes from privately negotiated sponsorship/endorsement deals (For instance, it's well known that the sprinter Usain Bolt probably made in the tens of millions in 2011, but all his contracts are private so they wouldn't be included in this chart. In contrast, there is a "distance runner" category, because there are many marathons throughout the year with known prize pools).

I think the Japanese chart for something like this would be fascinating. And considering all the titles Iyama Yuta won in 2012, he probably made a fair amount. From what i gathered, Iyama Yuta earned this last year alone:

Honinbo: $415, 000
Oza: $173, 000
Judan: $148, 000
Tengen: $122,000
Gosei: $67,000

Estimate: $925,000

This is an estimate because this data only includes that data. But Iyama Yuta earned 265,168 more than the top earning Korean player. Of course not every player wins as many titles as Iyama did in a single year, but I think that's pretty interesting.

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Prize money numbers from the Nihon Kiin (2011) converted using today's exchange rate to USD.

1. Cho U: $1,026,000
2. Yamashita Keigo: $977,400
3. Iyama Yuta: $640,600
4. Takao Shinji: $373,600
5. Hane Naoki: $318,400
6. Kono Rin: $284,400
7. Yamada Kimio: $217,000
8. Xie Yimin: $213,500
9. 25th Honinbo Chikun: $204,600
10. O Meien: $158,400

By the way, it seems to me that the total earnings for the top go players in the world may be strongly affected by when the Ing Cup (quadrennial) and the Chunlan Cup (biannual) are held. In 2013, the finals of both tournaments will be held, so the 2013 numbers will look inflated when they come out end the next year.

I think maybe the most useful comparison is to average salary in Korea. It's surprisingly hard to find a number in English that hasn't already been converted to dollars, but according to this 2008 data average Korean salary is about 25 million Won. From that point of view 120 million Won seems pretty nice.

Well, I distracted people by mentioning average wages in Switzerland, but we are talking about a top10 player. Even most players on this list now, won't be there in 5 years, and 95% (or how much?) of professional players earn less (will top 50 still earn 25 million won, I doubt it) and support themselves by other means.

It is always interesting to discuss the fairness of someone's earnings. To me the only oddity is that not more Koreans enter the Japanese scene, as there seems to be more money out there for Go players. Is there a restriction and how did Cho U pass?

Otherwise, this world is not a meritocracy where some objective argument converts skill into money. Professional athletes, especially in long distances, earn notoriously little money except for a happy few household names and even those do not compare to football stars (soccer), tennis players, golf players, boxers or race car drivers. Even those highly skilled people who are already at the high end of the salary scale, do not earn nearly as much money as professional money makers like Carlos Slim, Warren Buffet and their likes.

Football stars only partly earn their money because of their excellence. They (chose to) excel in a skill which happens to have big economic value. Part of their "merit" lies in dealing with fame. Football stars do not lead a normal life and are harassed by tabloids. They do not really realize that and often take their huge salary for granted, pressing to be "left in peace and just be admired for their skill". That's not the way it works and I wouldn't probably want to switch with them.

Baduk stars also enjoy some popularity but their following is probably smaller and more educated. This means they do not suffer from the excesses of fame but neither do they get the reward for dealing with it.

So there is an economic value linked to high salaries for excellence in skill and much of that has to do with fame. There is some fairness in that, although many would probably take the private pool WITH the barbed wire.

And then there are those who do not respond to economic value but even manipulate it. Their art is making money, selling short or buying undervalued stock. They don't have to deal with fame as much as sport stars, because their money is not a reward for fame. Their money is the very subject of their skill. There is certainly no fairness in that.

The world is not a meritocracy, people. As Chester Karass said, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

I asked almost the same question in this thread. You might find the responses interesting.

Indeed, John F.'s response doesn't quite come out at and explicitly say it, but it looks like the real reason more Korean pros don't come over and play in Japan is...well..they don't train in Japan. From the perspective of someone like Lee ChangHo or Lee SeDol, in hindsight it might make a lot of sense to think "Oh, they could have gotten more money if they had just developed in Japan so they could win the more lucrative tournaments". Realistically though by the time they would have developed to the point it is clear they could be a top pro, they already have a mentor and they are more or less committed to the pro organization they would eventually play for. For example - Cho U went to Japan to study around the age of 10. This is about the same age Lee ChangHo became a live-in pupil with Cho Hunhyun. It's safe to say that, for both players, shortly thereafter they were more or less committed to where they would become professionals simply by nature of their training. In that sense, making the decision of playing in Japan would have to be one made by the parents of the player and would probably require them to already have contacts with a Japanese professional.

If you compare them to the Jordans(1st athlete billionaire) not so hot, but to the track and field team, or your average football lineman... Not so bad and they won't have had two or three different knee reconstruction surgeries, and don't forget the farm team baseball players or the NFL practice teams.

Yeah, but that's a bum comparison. These guys aren't life long 1dan, they are the best players in Korea. In the NFL:

For the 2012 season, minimum NFL base salaries are ...

1) Rookie - $390,000
2) 1 year - $465,000

1 year players slot into 2nd on that list. And this is minimum salary... i.e 3rd stringers. Many practice squad players clear over $100k a season.
So like, 98% of KBA pros don't even clear practice squad player salary.

People playing a board game a few people care about versus a sport that half the country watches. There's not much of a point for comparison.