Im saying that I have seen other sport athletes that couldnt transfer to V-ball.

I have coached baseball at a lower level, and played football(college). I will freely admit that other sports are difficult to transfer skills to. I just think the general tone underestimated V-ball.

ret

Hurdling is like volleyball - a second string sport. You go for hurdles, if you are not going to make the grade as a sprinter. This would change if the incentives were there. I'd guess 90%+ of the list would change.

Did any have a $10 million a year incentive to motivate them?

Volleyball's a little tricky because, among other things, you have to distinguish between indoor 6's and beach doubles. Within 3 years, many athletes could develop into a middle hitter who'd be more valuable than the top 100 players of today. That'd be possible to a lesser extent for outside hitters, since there are ways you can hide their inferior passing and defense.

With the Top 100 beach doubles players, there'd be significantly less change. However, there are less dedicated casual players currently outside the Top 1000 who could become Top 100 within 3 years given proper motivation. That even happens currently when very good, but non-elite indoor volleyball players convert to beach and become big money winners on the AVP.

As for non-volleyball players becoming Top 100 in beach doubles within 3 years, that'd have to be a small number. All of this depends on what other infrastructure comes about. If the Top 100 get $10 million, but player #101 only gets the same as #101 gets now and volleyball remands a second-tier sport, then i reckon there'd be fewer than 15 non-volleyball players in the Top 100 three years hence. However, if volleyball becomes the next big fad, on television all the time, and player #101 makes a very comfortable living, then the number could be over 50.

None.

As i posted earlier:

To answer the question without answering it:

I think to get to the top it takes a person that would do it regardless of the money. The top x of those people already make 2.4 gazillion a year. For the most part anyway.

ret

vb-95%
chess-95%
pool-95%
poker-10% (hard to measure)
sprinters-95%
baseball-10%
accountants-95%

the top 10-20 sprinters would hardly change but the lower bounds certainly would.

id say nearly all volleyballers would change. all nbaers would dominate.

dunno how you measure poker or accounting. i would imagine most accountants would be "outplayed." the smartest ppl rarely gravitate towards it and those who are accountants rarely put full effort into it.

pool would be a lot. 85% or so.

baseball would be close to 0 as the top 100 players make that much now.

chess i have no clue but i think chess requires natural ability so other than introducing the game to more ppl who wouldn cultivate their skill otherwise i cant see much change. not sure even if a lot of newbs with a ton of talent can make up that much ground in just 3 yrs.

4,

"You really think that in 3 years someone outside of the top 1000 accountants could become more proficient than a CPA who has 15 years or more of experience? As a CPA, I'd say the number would be under 25%."


I know tons of excellent accountants who for various reasons decide to stay Controller or CFO of a smallish company or not put in the effort to most quickly move towards partner in an audit firm. Give some of these talented people a $10M/yr carrot and they'll be working their asses off to make it to that "top 100" level.


"That's a pool of less than 7,000."

I'm assuming just about everyone would come from that pool or close to it. But whatever it is that separates the top 1,000 from the rest and the top 100 from the rest definitely has a lot to do with effort and drive, not just talent, intelligence, and experience. Let's say you put Fortune xxx CFOs or Sr. Partners at the big firms as your top 100. There are many people who get to partner, say "top 5000" or wherever, and are more than happy to sit back at that point and be happy. It's the smartest of those people who I imagine would vault into the "top 100" with this incentive.

Dali,

"100 yard dash sprinters 60%"

Where are all those world class sprinters coming from?

"id say nearly all volleyballers would change. all nbaers would dominate"

I dont understand why people continue to state NBA athletes would transfer over. I will state again; people that have this belief don't know v-ball.

ret

El D,

I agree with your post, but have one follow-up. Since much of the top 100 got there with a lot of drive and determination (many CFOs make well over a million in total compensation) why would they not continue to improve once a $10 million carrot is offered? They already have proved that they are willing to bust ass for the brass ring (and it takes more than 3 years to get there0.

I think 75% of the top 100 stay there because they have an almost insurmountable advantage. I agree that some non-partner types like CAOs and controllers would come out of the woodwork to make up the 'new' 25.

I think anyone who says 95% either does not understand what "accounting" really encompasses or has assumed that accounting means staff accountant.

A,

"As far as I know, the answer is "not many." But I don't think it's rare either. I'm not sure I understand your point though."

I am not an expert here, but I know that there are guys like Terrence Trammell who are world class at both sprinting and hurdles and other top sprinters like Justin Gatlin who were very good at hurdles but stopped competing in it to focus on the far more prestigious and profitable sprints.

Some quick checks of hurdlers like Ron Bramlett and Allen Johnson show that they never competed at a world-class level at sprints, so I might be mistaken in my assumption that the best of the best naturally gravitate to sprints and the second-tier guys are more likely to be hurdlers. If the explosive nature of the two events is different enough that they require fundamentally different talents, then the change from sprint to hurdles makes far less difference.

However, it will still make a difference, since there are currently fewer opportunities to make huge money as a hurdler than a sprinter. So, some top athletes who might otherwise not continue with hurdling otherwise would be more incented to do so with this deal, whereas the top sprinters already have some pretty huge carrots in front of them.

42,

I just think the knowledge/skill/experience among the top 7,000 or however many is really just not that different (based on my experience with guys across that spectrum in differnt types of positions) and the real difference comes down to stuff like willingness to sacrifice quality of life, etc. I think that when you're talking about what you need to do to go from say $500k/year to $1.5m/year (just picking some numbers here, adjust accordingly), the drive/determination of the current "top 1000" makes a big difference. But when you make that a $500k to 10m jump, all of a sudden I think the drive and determination shown by many of the best and the brightest from those "bottom 6000" suddenly becomes pretty equal to those currently in the "top 1000."

Ya, I agree. I overlooked that this was your point in your first reply.

If you look back to where Sklansky entered hurdling vs. sprinting into the discussion, I believe he was using it as an analog for "learned skill" vs. "natural skill" (maybe I'm wrong), and I didn't think this was an accurate example. I didn't mean to suggest that hurdling would not see more change, after considering the bigger increase in incentive. You are indeed correct that the $10 million incentive would have a bigger effect on hurdlers.

lets see, a 6-8 dude who can jump out of the building and has sick body control and tons of strenthg. thats what a lot of nbaers are. how would he not be good at a game thats most important facet is jumping and using hand eye control and timing.

sure, they would have to work very hard to acquire bumping and setting skills but their blocking and slamming ability would be unparrelled.

i know quite a few hoopsters that were sick volleyballers in high school and in club teams in college.

"their blocking and slamming ability would be unparrelled."
Simply not true. I know this sport at a deep level.

There are already 7' plus guys with 40+ inch verticals that play this sport. Why couldnt they have just as good body control? How do we know that they would have live arms?

Ret

Ret, you try to come off as you know something about the sport of volleyball and then provide "facts" that certainly aren't true.

I found no one taller than 6'9" on the 2006 USA World Championship team. I won't forget to mention that white men can't jump.

As stated earlier I was speaking world wide.

Ret

Victor: Of course you are correct that a number of second-tier b-ball guys would spend 3-years becoming 10m/yr volleyballers.

r: "There are already 7' plus guys with 40+ inch verticals that play this sport. Why couldnt they have just as good body control?" 'Cause with rare exceptions, they would be too much of an idiot to succeed at anything at a world class level if they chose to focus on volleyball instead of basketball in that scenario.

Except, world wide v-ball is on equal footing with basketball(this is changing rapidly in B-ball's favor). For a big guy from Serbia, he has better access to v-ball coaching and club(which is = AAU for basketball in the US), and therefore a better chance of being a pro V-ball athlete.

ret

Except, world wide v-ball is on equal footing with basketball(this is changing rapidly in B-ball's favor). For a big guy from Serbia, he has better access to v-ball coaching and club(which is = AAU for basketball in the US), and therefore a better chance of being a pro V-ball athlete.

ret

r,

Who cares about club volleyball in Serbia? 7-footers w/ 40in verticals and great body control are recruited from whatever tiny corner of the world they might exist in to play basketball in the NBA. Please show me those 7-footers that decide to pass up millions per year to remain the #1 hitter at Klub Vozhdina Zrenevac Volleyball.

Close to zero. Also the 100 yard dash is rarely ever run. It has been in meters for years.
Dr. Merriweather(think that's his name) is the only true amateur to ever beat the pros.

"Also the 100 yard dash is rarely ever run"

OOOOOHHHHH GOOD POINT!!!

There is an important point missing in the chessplayer argument.

That is that the 1000 top ranked US players are not the 1000 best US players. Why? Because after a time of inactivity, they are not ranked.

For a famous example, Bobby Fischer (is he still alive?)would not currently be ranked. Is curtains still active? He would be in the top for sure. For a very unfamous example, I broke the US top 100 list in 1989. And there are *LOTS* of inactive masters around. Some got distracted by school, or business, or are just too broke to play in tournaments.

I think the chance that someone could start from scratch and make it into the top 100 are super slim. But I think that someone who used to be a strong player getting back into the game again is very high. If you count foreign players who have no US rating moving in, the number is even higher. The wildcard is masters of other games (chinese chess, go, etc.) making the transition to international chess.

Players currently in the top 100 maintaining their position:30

Players (already FM+) moving from other places in the world to be in the top 100: 40

Players (already FM+) brushing off old skills:10

Players from the bottom 900 moving into the top 100:15


Players (already serious) currently below 1000 moving up: 3

Someone new who picks it up in 3 years: 2 (includes one asian who moves from chinese chess)