^^ Sad to see only one cricketer made into this list. IMHO It shows that where cricket stands in comparison of other sports and clearly begging for more exposure in other parts of the world too, not just Subcontinent.
United States happens to be the no.1 market for sports, and the natives there are simply not interested in cricket. They have their own sport (baseball) which is very similar to cricket, and therefore it is not very surprising. The ICC has poured in a lot of money in to that market, hoping that cricket will take off. But that strategy failed, because they were concentrating only on the expats (Asian and West Indian).
Snip
This has been the case almost always and will probably stay this way in the future. Very few Cricketers tend to end up in these lists since their payments are usually in currencies like INR etc which pale in comparison to USD, Pounds etc.
First world currencies will always Trump 3rd world currencies any day. Sports starts in 1st world countries can live comfortably in 3rd world countries with probably an year worth of earnings.
I think it says more for the ludacris salaries they get in the NBA, NFL etc. I mean a average NBA player like Matthew Dellavedova gets paid $10 million USD a year, pretty hard to compete with that lol.
We cannot compare the salaries and pay which people in the West get with the salaries for the Asian people. But still the Asain cricketers get very good salaries and benefits, after all they are playing for the nation and they have a good pay structure.
Im not sure why youll are comparing Asian cricket stars with other sport stars, as each sports person is different and they get paid according to the sport that theyre playing, hence their earnings should not be compared.
Lastly Indian cricket fans often consider their cricket stars to be gods, and no others sports player gets this kind of comparison from their fans, therefore just comparing their earnings and then judging if the sport is good or no doesnt make any sense to me.
Sources:
https://www.crictracker.com/19-things-which-prove-indian-fans-worship-cricket/https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/indian-cricket-fans-are-convinced-sachin-tendulkar-runs-popular-god-account-on-twitter-2171541.html