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If you are wondering about stocking fillers for the children this Christmas, you would do well to treat them with golf clubs or something motorised. Unless, of course, the presents are for girls, then it doesn’t matter so much.
That is the upshot of this year’s BRW top 50 sports earners rich list, with 10 coming from motor sports and 15 golfers making the cut.
Soccer players, as always, are well represented while seven cricketers have also made the grade.
Greg Norman topped the charts for the 12th straight year with $20.9 million in sports-related income – proving that not even a messy divorce could slow down his stunning earning power.
To his credit The Shark actually made an impact on the golf course for the first time in years in 2008, almost adding a third British Open title before finishing third.
Harry Kewell ($10.5 million) came in second, finding financial delight at new Turkish club Galatasaray, in front of motocross star Chad Reed ($8.7m).
The fairer sex was on the outer in the cash stakes with golfers Karrie Webb and Katherine Hull just squeezing onto the list.
Basketball superstars Lauren Jackson and Penny Taylor slipped off, having scaled back their playing duties before the Beijing Olympics.
While Australian-based footballers earn some decent bread, they play for crumbs by international standards.
Chris Judd is the only AFL player to make the top 50 with John Aloisi the sole representative from the A-League.
No NRL player picked up enough coin to join them.
“It seems to be more motor sport people in there than previously,” said BRW editor-in-chief Sean Aylmer.
“In some ways the soccer guys still do well, the golfers still do well and you have the odd basketballer but it is these motorbike and motorsport people that are coming through and making money.”
Aylmer admitted the list wasn’t necessarily completely spot-on but close to the mark.
“We do a lot of work in terms of using a bunch of researchers and working out how many matches they have played and in terms of sponsorship we talk to agents,” he said.
“I am sure we are not 100 per cent on all of them but the proof is in the pudding. If you get people viciously wrong, they tend to tell you very quickly.
“We are pretty confident that we are pretty accurate without saying that we are 100 per cent accurate.”
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