Earnings of West Indian players

Someone who’s been decent (not great, but relatively good)

How much would they make over their career?

Someone like Gabriel, he’s retired. Do you think his income from playing for the West Indies would be say a million dollars over his career?

Our players don’t get the sort of endorsements that Indians or English players do.

Even the bonafide greats like Lara and Chanderpaul probably don’t have as much market value compared to say a Sachin or Dravid

In reply to brians_da_best

Hard to tell with International retainers, franchise contracts, county contracts etc.

I don't know what way taxation works around the regions concerning the players and the money they earn outside of the Caribbean.

Lara would've made a lot of money commercially with his world records.

In reply to brians_da_best

They have a documentary about Patrick Patterson (Jamaica) and wicket David Murray (Barbados and son of Everton Weekes, father of Ricky Hoyte). Those 2 are probably extreme (in a bad way). Lara would be on the other end of the spectrum because he was a superstar and had endorsements and gifts from the T&T Government.

Otherwise, have the cricketers invested their money in retirement plans so that they don't need to seek further work?

Lets say for example an average cricketer like Keith Arthurton or Nixon McClean - what is their financial disposition?

I would fathom a guess, not good.

Yeah this isn’t about the likes of Lara who is amongst the richest cricketers in the world. This is about the relatively decent players who have played for a few years for us.

Someone like Gabriel, or franklyn rose, Reon king, or Ryan Hinds, Ricardo Powell, etc.

Does the WICB have a retirement pension scheme or do these players invest in any such instruments.

Very few West Indian players get into commentary, and post cricket, their life seems far removed from the game. How do they then by?

There should be a plan, complete with investment advisors, from the time these guys get central contracts that they can at least opt into. players should probably also get a cut from media revenues. It is definitely worthwhile investigating this. I am not a fan of comparing our players to Indian or Oz or English players as we live in our region, not theirs. If a decent player makes US$100k a year in the WI, he is still way above the average earnings for most people and probably for most sportsmen (except possibly the JA athletes). That is benchmark that he should be compared to, rather than what a foreign athlete is making. If he wants to be a superstar, like a Dre Russ or Pollard or Pooran, let him put in the work to raise his standards so that he can earn accordingly. Average players cannot expect above average earnings.

What should very average cricketers like Jason Mohammed, Ashley Nurse, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Marquino Mindley etc make?

Well, most of these players nowadays have agents.

The job of the agent is to identify investment plans for their clients.
Such plans include: -
a). Providing a salary for the monies earned.
b). Provide a stipend for their families (child support, scholarship funds etc).
c). Investigate and recommend investment opportunities to grow their monies.
d). Investigate and recommend a pension plan for retirement.
e). Investigate and recommend attorneys for all legal concerns (criminal and civil).
f). Investigate, recommend and create branding and intellectual property rights.

A proper agent works with communications (publicists) concerns.
Although the players get contract earnings, the agent should provide them with a salary from these earnings,
A salary is mainly to prevent/deter them from overspending.
The agent gets them connected with the right people to handle all aspects of their lives.

We must remember that most if not all of these players are kids.
They must be guided to ensure that they live respectable lives.
Most sports players go bankrupt because of overspending, no financial planning,
insufficient or no financial guidance.
I am not going to mention players of the past, as they were left on their own.

Do you really think that Sachin or Kholi do their own taxes etc.

In reply to imusic

these guys are probably a grade below international standard but were all solid regional standard. Our region basically does not include BVI, Cayman, Bermuda and Bahamas, which are the richest in the region. We can therefore take the average earnings in the test playing country as detemined by the relevant Ministries of Finance and use a multiplier based on the fact that of the 5million or so persons in the region, only perhaps 50 persons are regional cricket standard so that their earnings should be x times the average earnings in the region. Maybe 5-7 times the average, which would probably put them on par with some professionals and middle to upper management?

In reply to brians_da_best

They make 100 000 to 200 000 a year playing redball cricket