se dice q un piloto del top 10 promedio gana anualmente no menos de 15 millones anuales
es en ingles.. lo siento, no esta en español.. .. pero le pueden meter un traductor de google pero no me hago responsable de los insultos q les de
How has NASCAR kept salaries of drivers secret?
By STAN CHOE
The Charlotte Observer
For sports fans, how much pro athletes earn is usually as well-known as how many home runs they hit, rebounds they grab or touchdowns they score.
After baseball, football and even soccer players sign their contracts, the numbers quickly become public knowledge, such as third baseman Alex Rodriguez's $252 million, 10-year deal or Peyton Manning's $34.5 million signing bonus from the Indianapolis Colts.
But NASCAR has been unusual in sports in its ability to keep owners' contracts with the stars a secret. It usually takes a lawsuit or divorce for a driver's income to become public.
Details about the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s income, for example, became public last week in a lawsuit over a life insurance policy.
The main reason for NASCAR's successful secrecy, according to economists, agents and race team officials, is its different setup from other sports leagues. NASCAR drivers contract independently with race teams. And unlike other prominent professional sports, NASCAR - staying true to its Southern, nonunion roots - has no players' association and no salary caps to contend with.
"Comparing NASCAR to the NFL, it's comparing apples and kumquats," said Reed Bergman, CEO of sports-marketing firm Playbook Inc. in Atlanta and has negotiated athletes' contracts.
Even when NASCAR driver contracts become public, the figures can still be unclear. The copy of Earnhardt's contract with Richard Childress Racing in the Lexington courthouse has been heavily edited, to protect confidential details. The contract appears to show that Childress would have paid Earnhardt $7.2 million in salary from 2001-03; the racing icon died in a 2001 wreck. (Another form in the file indicates his self-employment income was $7.2 million.) Another life insurance application estimates his total income at more than $10 million a year.
"Ours is more like the environment of most people when they go to work - they expect the financial details to remain between you and the company," said Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing, whose drivers include Kurt Busch and Mark Martin. Most workers also don't have to fit into a salary cap at their company, Smith said.
But in the NFL, where each team's player payroll was capped at $80.5 million last year, every dollar that quarterback Donovan McNabb makes is one less dollar the Philadelphia Eagles can pay to other players.
In other sports, player unions have an incentive to trumpet the dollar values of deals, said Michael Leeds, an economics professor at Temple University who studies baseball contracts.
By publicizing the contracts, the association gives players benchmarks to use in their own negotiations with teams.
In the old days before unions, baseball teams would typically tell Player A he couldn't make more than Player B, who had a better year. But the team would lie about how much Player B made, Leeds said.
Roush Racing's Smith said today's NASCAR drivers have an informal information network. They know roughly what the market salaries are, he said.
In other major pro sports, agents also often like to get the high-dollar deals they negotiate out to the public. A $250 million headline could help that agent get more clients.
And where there are collective bargaining agreements, many more people see signed contracts, from the team to the player to the union. That means more opportunities to leak.
"For us, there's nobody who sees our contracts other than us," said Scott Lampe, chief financial officer for Hendrick Motorsports. "There's no leak."
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From the Managing Editor of "Nascar Nation" on Fox Sports:
"According to Forbes, Jeff Gordon made $19.3 million in 2004. But according to NASCAR, he won only $8.3 on the track. Actually, he probably took home about 40% of those winnings. The remaining $11 million came from salary, appearance fees, bonus incentives from his sponsors, and endorsement fees
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