This article will investigate the (non)sense of rewarding an Olympic medallist with a nice steaming pile of cash. Should be noted that not all countries do this, and some change their policy over time. We will primarily look at two options: The athlete is paid versus a unpaid athlete, the latter has to pay for everything themselves, where the former receives a salary and many more training advantages paid for by taxes.

Please note that this article will be partially ignoring other events, for the sake of making a focused argument, including all events leads to sports specific cases, of which there are many. Most other event, those not discussed in this article, do offer a cash prize to the winner, the Olympics do not; this is what makes it suitable for this article. Adding the other events, would mess up the paid/unpaid equation.

Facilities present and paid for by public funds

In this scenario the medallist does not have to use any of his/her own money for any part, but is paid a fixed amount of such hight that getting a second job is not required. All training sessions paid for, this includes both a full professional head coach plus assistants, a genuine state of the art training facility, entry fees for all event, etc. In short; this person is fully employed by taxpayers for no other reason than perform at the Olympic games.

In this case you could say that the government is making an investment in the athlete, so any and all profit of the investment is for the greater good, e.g. society as a whole. As general society benefits from having a someone to root for during events, monetary gains are for the government. It would be beneficial if the prize money (or lack there of, as this article debates the need) is directly sent to the sports budget, so future investments are possible. The future generation needs to be trained, or bribed so they don`t emigrate.

Naturally the athlete will need some encouragement, besides currency, so a internal ranking, or case specific means of motivating must be found.

Fully paid by the Olympic medallist

In this case  all costs are covered by a private person (athlete and direct family in theory), who will loose more than just a low carat gold medal. Money can be saved by sticking to your childhood coach/team and on many other fronts by making some hard choices. But the event itself will be held during a very high demand on hotels and other services so travel expenses will skyrocket. Not to mention the lost income of having to take time off for several preparation matches, plus needing to do so during a sporting event for which coworkers would also like time off*.

This can easily be about risk versus reward for a individual and their immediate family. In this case a cash bonus is only fair; they paid for everything and given your citizens someone to cheer for or at least a reason to watch the event. Not having a big bag of money in the horizon may mean that people simply are unwilling to front the expenses. We do mean unwilling: As winning is far from guaranteed and can take years (Olympic games are held every 4 years, world championships are sometimes every 2nd year), so those who aren`t rich to begin with, will never be able to support such an endeavour on their own.

Funding from third private party

This case is similar to the paid by government option; instead all expenses are paid for by a private party, outside of the family; so a sponsorship.  One big difference is that the company does not care about giving the people someone to cheer for; they are solely doing it to increase their own market share. We assume that the sponsorship is dependent on the athlete`s performance during other events as well and appearances in advertisements. As such not everything depends on those brief weeks during the Olympics. A highly popular athlete who continuously fails to reach even the top 3, is presumably more appropriate than someone who consistently takes home the gold, but is severely despised by the target audience.

In the end, a high ranking corporate official will decide to continue the contract, and at what cost. It is very likely that becoming an Olympic medallist will increase the contract value, as it is something that the PR department can use to put extra emphasis on added value. Depending on the specific brand; it is conceivable that the athlete`s performance will attributed, in part, to the sponsor. This is far easier for a sports or nutrition brand than for an insurer to claim, so a level of synergy is preferred.

*Some manager will be sympathetic to your cause, whilst most will see nothing but an employee who disappears for days. The exact same goes for universities, only they do not offer time away; every missed class is a negative mark on your record.