Cricket Australia's contracted players pay will increase by 13.1 per cent in each of the next two financial years to June 2011, lifting the minimum base from $180,000 to $190,000 in the 2009-10 season and to $210,000 in 2010-11.
Rugby League and AFL players can earn each year $600,000 plus with endorsements, while top tennis players can earn $3 million plus and golfers even more.
For Olympic superstar sprinter Usain Bolt to turn up and compete in a Track and Field meet in your city, be sure officials have the sponsors onside as it will cost a very pretty penny.
And is there a hint of criticism that 'hero status' cricket coach Australia's John Buchanan, who coached the Australian Cricket Team to its greatest ever achievements (concluding in 2007), is now doing a coaching stint with England?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/cricket/australia-not-fazed-by-bucks-new-gig/2009/06/11/1244664796105.html
Moreover Australia's Federal Sports Minister Kate Ellis is considering a HECS style situation for trainee athletes that progress to the professional ranks and do exceedingly well.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/what-the-hecs-athletes-face-another-hurdle/2009/06/10/1244313187027.html
Cricket chaplain of 25 years Mark Tronson, a Baptist minister and chairman of Well-Being Australia, acknowledges there are two sides of every coin and both these viewpoints need to be given their due considerations.
Although there is a lawful and moral requirement to financially compensate individuals for their effort, in Cricket for example, World Series Cricket in 1978 was initiated as cricketers were not seen to be getting 'a fair share of the take'.
Therefore, one serious question that seems to have relevance relates to what might be a 'fair share of the take?'
"In Australia there seems not to have been a problem with this with tennis and golf where professionalism has been the order of the day before WWII," M V Tronson noted. "Similarly with motor racing, where the benefits by necessity had to meet the substantial costs in maintaining a finely tuned racing machine, quite often it was large companies that were involved in sponsorship".
The issue of conflict in 'a fair share of the take' seems to have had its genesis in Australian sports associated with the participation of the common man. Rugby League separated from Rugby Union on this very issue.
Mark Tronson says there increasingly became legitimate opposition from the weight of society that said, 'you should not earn such large amounts of money from sport'.
Even the Olympic movement recognised this dichotomy when it finally accepted professionals as legitimate competitors.
In M V Tronson's view, there are areas to consider when reflecting on the moral issues of 'how much is a sports person worth'.
Sports bodies and advertisers pay high prices for 'young shoulders' many of whom are not yet strong enough to bear the responsibility of 'big money'. One way forward might be a legal strategy that holds in trust a percentage of the income earned, until a pre-determined arbitrary age (or retirement in special cases, such as injury).
Coaches selling their expertise might consider a business model. An owner of a plumbing supply business who sells it, under contractual agreements, cannot open another plumbing supply business in the next street for 'so many years'. Would this work for coaches? But corporate leaders jump ship from one to another!
"The free market place has extended to sport, and with this comes some unexpected outcomes," M V Tronson mused. "Special circumstance clauses might be a way to protect the young and inexperienced from themselves, and the jury is still out on whether national prestige can claim protection from coaches who have moved on."