You can’t make the public watch things they don’t want to. And no one wants to pay for something they’re not interested in or want.

It’s frustrating that this was never mentioned in the article. It was never covered why income is what it is.

This article is reporting on a survey run by the the so-called Australian Sports Foundation. From their own financial report:

The objective of the Sports Foundation is to raise money for the development of sport in Australia.

So it’s an unsurprising conclusion. If there was a similar foundation, also pulling in $47 million per annum, for a similar activity people do out of passion rather than necessity such as… I dunno… “Australian Spoon Tapping Foundation”? That foundation’s CEO would probably be more than happy to give a soundbite for the media. But elite spoon tappers don’t have a foundation nor do they really identify as spoon tappers.

There is an interesting story here, though. I think some people assume that elite athletes equals mega dollars. But that is not the case. An interesting article that actually informs and entertains the public could:

1. report on the average income of elite athletes
2. give an insight on what most elite athlete’s lives are really like; how they survive earning less than $23K/year.
3. explain why their income is low

Instead what we’ve got here is a headline implicitly stirring up feelings of injustice, some comments from some CEO, some nothing numbers with no context, and finally an actual comment from an actual athlete (right at the bottom of the article?!).