In India, unless you play cricket and hit it big, prize winnings as mentioned below are far and few between. Exceptions are there, for every 100 successful cricketers you have one Vishwanathan Anand. Another exception, the Super Attractive Sania Mirza who despite the fact has no grand slam, or no major tournament win is still one of the highest earners in India. Guess Glam is better than Grand Slam !!
In the US, large part of the economy runs on Sports. I can do some analysis later but Comcast cable that shows the sports, major commercial brands crank up their marketing budgets for the super bowl, hundreds and thousands of college level athletes trying to make it to the professional level everybody and everything is based on sports being a commodity.
The opportunity is there you have minor league, major league, softball, baseball and heck if thats not enough you also have the World Series of Dominoes live on ESPN. (Pinch me) !
A recent article in WSJ did the study focussing on how long it would take for athletes to earn $100,00. It takes a US Citizen an average of 4 years to earn 100k.
Considering the fact that athletes have to bust their butt, these are their fine winnings !!
ATHLETE/SPORT TO EARN $100,000
Alex Rodriguez, MLB 6 pitches
Ben Roethlisberger, NFL* 4 snaps
Tiger Woods, golf 11 holes
LeBron James, NBA* 21 minutes
Roger Federer, tennis 28 games
Tony Stewart, Nascar 125 laps
Norm Duke, bowling* 2,360 frames
*last full season
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574371013208743826.html
Now wonder what Team India must be thinking. I need to play a test match for 5 days and not even be assured of a result, place in the next game. Can I throw 6 pitches and pocket a few ?
