The 100th ranked male golfer is Mito Pereira whose been a professional for 7 years and has career earnings of $2.2M
Obviously there's sponsorship etc on top of that.
That's not quite the point I was trying to make and I should have been clearer in what I was saying. The tour organisers still need a tour that attracts enough players to make it interesting so they need to provide more than an adequate living to attract enough good golfers. That means a fairly comfortable living and the chance of glory for those who, for want of a better term, are making up the numbers. And in sport those making up the numbers always have the chance of glory(My best round was a gross 71 when I was playing off 11.5).
The point I was trying to make is that those at the very top get the bulk of the money. For example Scottie Schefler has already earned $10m this year whereas Nate Lashley at 100 has earned $900k. A very comfortable living for Nate, but when you consider the difference in ability, which really isn't very much in the wider scheme of things, its a big difference in earnings. Its hard to say that Scottie is 10x better than Nate.
It would be a very boring competition and wouldn't attract the TV and sponsorship money if the likes of Nate Ashley weren't prepared to turn up if only the top 10, for example, got prize money.
Apply this to rugby, and these are wholly made up numbers. Rob Miller or Booj or any other squad member, might earn say £100k but the marquee players are going to be earning £1m+. Again a comfortable living and will incentive them to turn up and train knowing they'll get the odd games and may even end up playing in a cup final.
Rugby couldn't exist without the likes of Rob Miller and Booj, but if you look at the history of the professional game the gap between the top earners and those making up the squad had widened, because the top earners can ply their trade anywhere in the rugby world, whereas the likes of Rob face more competition for those squad positions. Are those marquee players really 10x better? Its hard to measure it objectively but those marquee players have a much bigger market for their talent since the game internationalised.
I would argue that cricket is actually not suffering at county level from playing quality, it is suffering because they keep shoehorning it in at the start and end of the season, and the blame is diverted by the ECB to the counties when their own policy has been to persue white ball cricket, introduce a new format and engage in corporate approaches of spin that make politicians look truthful by comparison.
I agree, its a mess and I've lost interest because I can't keep up, but its a mess because all the star players are plying their trade internationally. When I was young when we went to watch Yorkshire we were guaranteed to to see the likes of Geoff Boycott, Fred Truman, Ray Illingworth and the rest of the stars playing in county games, unless England were playing that week and there was only 5 Test matches a season.
Now, with central contracts the only way they can pay players enough to make them available for England, you hardly see the top players at the county level. I'll bet there'd be bigger crowds, TV contracts and sponsorship deals if the likes of Josh Butler were playing week in week out.
We've had similar talk on here about clubs losing their England players for half of next season, how much has that affected season ticket sales? Will the marginal supporter turn out on a cold wet January Saturday if the likes Jack Willis, Alfie Bearberry and Joe Launchbury are away with England?
If rugby isn't careful its going to see the same death spiral as county cricket. To be fair I think that danger is recognised and hence all the rules around salary caps and player qualifications, but they still keep trying to add in more internationals.