I am surprised more young kiwis do not take cricket up.
It just pays so well..
Union and League players are poor, to a cricketer these days.
I suspect Kane, Ross et al to be very wealthy in the end, our guys are, so is anyone good enough.
Maybe to star Indian and Australian players. Out rugby guys still out earn our crickets comfortably despite the IPL. You do make some good points, but I think you gloss over a few issues.
The captain of NZ Cricket makes 400K if he plays all games.
Richie McCaw was on 900K. But Richie McCaw also has millions and millions of dollars of endorsements comming in from Mastercard and Versatile advertisements each year on tv ad nauseam. Richie earns 2.5 million while I do not see any BMac tv ads not merely advertising cricket. Because cricket is not popular here, the players do not get the same celebrity as rugby players do. So BMac subsidises his income with T20 to earn about a million.
Dan Carter was on 2.3 million with 800K from All Blacks, that is now 2.5 million from a French club and if he keeps his endorsements that balloons to 4 million a year.
Kane could be huge globally, but he is our first cricketing superstar since Crowe (Bond was a so brief). To be huge globally, he has got to get Indian appeal like Lee and Watson did and do for those big Indian endorsement deals.
Kane is a very good T20 player these days, but his real jam is ODI and Test cricket, so his IPL earnings will refelect this. Corey Anderson got a million dollar IPL deal last year because he has great potential in T20 with his power hitting (and useful death bowling). But Corey Anderson is crap test player.
Dan Vettori earns a tidy sum as he sought after in T20 leagues as both a player and a coach. Ross has had some nice IPL contracts in the past.
But there are million dollar rugby offers to be had in Ireland, England, France and Japan by the many. The players do not even have to be star All Blacks to get these deals. Star All Blacks have a money train waiting for them in the UK when they retire working PR for their banks, financiers and insurers.
The average super rugby salary was $200,000 in 2008. I think its capped at 190k now. A first class cricketer in NZ was making 37,000 plus match fees (in 2011) to earn about $60,000.00 max if they were the top earner, and it slid down in scale per player. Not terrible pay to play cricket for 6 months - but incomparable to rugby. If a player makes regular super xv they have big $$$ in Japan waiting for them, if not Europe. If they don't make it big in Super XV - they can still play and coach rugby in Asia, Canada and USA. Maybe Italy.
The European, Japanese and global rugby tournaments are full of Kiwi talent earning a bloody good living - with great post retirement opportunities for them. Cricketers are not so loved in NZ. Bond and Vettori are on the coaches circuit - amazingly high money - but a playing career of touring, then a post playing career of touring as a coach - what about their families?
Michael Clarke earnt 5.5 million last year. Better than any All Black. But John Afoa is a on a million playing rugby. Never heard of him? Exactly. Shane Watson was collecting silly money - but this year no IPL love so far. Bravo was chosen ahead of him. I thought that was stupid.
A kiwi cricketer could turn their back on NZC and play full county cricket. But thats only a comfortable living. Not big money. The only access to Kiwis to big money in Cricket is through the IPL.
So while the avenues for cricket earning is increasing with the BPL, CPL, IPL, Natwest Blast and what not - it is not in any danger of encroaching on rugby territory just yet. Our Rugby players are far richer than our cricketers. we appreciate that the opposite is true for Australian cricket reps and its Union reps.
