Why are international cricketers wages outstripping rugby?

[quincy]

I appreciate that rugby players wages have been discussed before but with the recent announcement of the impending huge increase in England cricketers wages I thought the debate should be reopened.
Keeping the huge amounts earned in football, golf and tennis (one big English tournament a year)out of the equation I would like to discuss where does the money come from in cricket to justify the elite English squad having proposed central contracts of £750K plus per annum. This of course topped up by their county wages and a chance to earn even greater sums in the Indian League. Plus their argument for more in comparison to their Australian counterparts who recieve 1 million.
Rugby Unions top players, as far as we are told, earn average top wages of around £200k plus roughly a maximum £10k for a winning international appearance times a possible eight matches a year making £80k. Thus without huge sponsorship deals they may get up to something like £280k per year. This is some distance away from cricket.
I would also suggest the the MCC does not make as much profit from test matches as does the RFU from the 5 or 6 matches played a Twickenham.
I think the greatest part of my argument is that for some reason cricket looks after its players fiancially better than the RFU.
Why do the RFU pay the clubs (not the player) a lump sum every year for the privilege of having them train and play for their country when cricketers get their money direct into their pockets. It seems to me that the professional crickets association does a better job than the PRA.
I appreciate that top rugby players are well paid although the average premiership players gets £80K.
My argument is based on the apparent unfairness between the two sports

[Skin_and_Muscle]

I'm not sure it really matters from a fairness-inter-sports perspective. If we go down that road we'd ask why most sportsmen (/actors/musicians) earn more than the rest of us!

The problem is sustainability and income generation. Sports have to be really careful to pay players commensurate to what they can afford. If fans are charged more to foot the bill, then it is not a good move.

[kingneptuneii]

having a little musing over my lunch time sandwiches, I got to thinking about your mention of the MCC's profitability, and I reckon its far in excess of what the RFU get for England internationals.

(now I'll say right now that I'm WILDLY speculating some of these figures so please forgive me!)

the average price for a ticket to an England rugby international is what... £80-90? for an event that most fans will spend approximately 3-4 hours at on a Saturday. buying maybe 3-4 pints at approx £4. so this will equate to a ballpack average of around £115 per person?

now for an England Test (taking the latest ashes series). average ticket prices were around £60 per day for a 5 day event. so the tickets here equate to £300 for the 5 days, plus 6 or 7 per day(based on my last outing to FL20 finals day!!) at approx £4 each, for a full test, the MCC are looking at what.... £420-450 per person per test?

I would argue by this point that England test cricket is more profitable that test rugby, hense the ability to pay the centrally contracted players more (also factor in that the market rate for an international cricker isnt constrained by a salary cap as rugby players are!)

[Chunter]

The MCC ceased to be the governing body of cricket 20 years ago. It's now the England and Wales Cricketing Board (ECB) that has that responsilibity.

[Cagey Tiger]

You missed one important bit out of the equation kingneptuneii. There are not many English cricket grounds with an 82,000 capacity . Agreed, over the 5 days, there will probably be more people in total but, taking your figures of £115 per spectator day at Twickers and £85, say, per spectator day for cricket, the total income @ HQ will be approx. £9,430,000. If you divide that by £85 to get the total number of cricket spectators (over the whole 5 days) needed to get the same income, you get just under 110,000 or around 22,000 per day, every day.

I have pinched these figures from a 2 year old BBC article, so things may have changed a bit but the capacities of the Test grounds were:

•Lord's - capacity 28,000
•The Oval - capacity 23,500
•Trent Bridge - capacity 17,500
•Old Trafford - capacity 22,000
•Durham Riverside - capacity 19,000
•Cardiff - capacity 15,643
•Edgbaston - capacity 25,000

So total income would be a lot closer.

[mol2]

It may well be that the central contracts in cricket reflect that there are fewer players on them and there is probably more money in cricket - particularly the IPL. However a lot of clubs, like Leicestershire, are barely surviving.

[The Boy Dave]

Which sport is the minority sport, cricket or rugby union? I know cricket is the number one sport in India and Pakistan but I have no idea where each sport is placed in England and other nations in the southern hemisphere. Cricket does seem to place much more focus on a small group of elite players and by it's very obvious format's it covers many T.V hours. The order of the back pages used to be a marker for the pecking order of sports and when English cricket players are involved in internationals they are on the back pages for long periods and their "celebrity" status appears much bigger as a consequence. Aussie cricketers set the benchmark in the past by winning everything in sight but even now when they are struggling a bit in comparison it is still causing media coverage, negative media coverage but it is still exposure and when something is in demand the price goes up.

[DickyP]

Easy/obvious answer(s) to the question posed by the thread.

1 Fewer players
2. No salary cap.
3. Continuous worldwide season.
4. Only England seem to be able fill the 80,000 size stadium for every international