MELBOURNE basketball export Andrew Bogut tops a list of Australia's richest sports stars with homegrown athletes living on foreign shores packing the biggest pay packets by far.

US basketball star Bogut's estimated earnings of $16 million last year put him at the top of the tree of Aussie sports earners, ahead of golfer Adam Scott and retired Formula One star Mark Webber.

Brownlow medallist Gary Ablett was the AFL's highest earner on the annual BRW list of our richest sportspeople.

media_camera Mark Webber.

But his $1.5 million earnings last year were dwarfed by stars in sports such as cricket, tennis, surfing and baseball with our top 50 sportspeople making $158 million between them last year.

Aussie cricket stars cashed up from the lucrative Indian Premier league also figured prominently in the annual list with Test all-rounder Shane Watson and captain Michael Clarke coming in as sixth and seventh respectively.

Such has been the improvement in cricket earnings that the sport occupies the highest number of positions on the list - 11 - ahead of golf and football.

Cricket has come a long way from the eras like the early 1970s when players were sometimes paid less than groundsmen and even earlier times when greats such as Arthur Morris, when asked what the game had given them, would reply "poverty".

media_camera Shane Watson is Australian cricket's biggest earner. Picture: Brett Costello

Watson ($6 million), with an Indian Premier League deal worth at least $1.4 million and a long list of personal sponsors, pips ­Michael Clarke ($5.5 million) with David Warner (12th with $3.8 million), David Hussey ($2 million) and retired great Ricky Ponting ($2 million) also prominent.

Base contracts in Australian cricket have risen almost 20-fold since the early 1990s when Allan Border and other top players were signed to deals of just under $100,000.

Now the top five or six players on Australia's contract list are guaranteed base fees of almost $2 million a year.

Melbourne University marketing professor Bryan Lukas said the global appeal of sports such as golf, cricket, basketball and soccer made AFL player payments small fry by comparison.

media_camera Adam Scott is Australia's second highest sports earner after his recent win.

"The markets overseas in those sports is much larger and there is much bigger interest so our athletes are going overseas to appeal to that interest and to get bigger pay cheques,'' he said.

"AFL is an iconic sport in Australia but overseas, it's simply not played so the money is not the same.''

Tennis ace Samantha Stosur ($1.8 million) was Australia's top female earner, one of just two women in the top 50 along with surfing star Stephanie Gilmore ($1.5 million).

media_camera Australia's richest sportspeople.

"Sam Stosur is not even a top 10 player in her sport and she is still ahead of anyone in the AFL because she plays a global sport,'' Prof Lukas said.

US Open winner Scott earned an estimated $15.5 million last year, fellow golfer Jason Day banked about $7.5 million and Webber pocketed about $10 million in his final year behind the wheel of a Red Bull racer.

Melbourne-born, US-raised NBA star Kyrie Irving ranked fifth on the list with estimated earnings of $6.5 million after an All-Star season with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

South Australian poker player Jeff Rossiter was the wildcard entry, ranked 11th with earnings of about $4 million.

media_camera Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke.

It is the third straight year Bogut has been named Australia's richest sportsperson with a contract extension with the Golden States Warriors expected to push his career earnings above $100 million.

He was one of four basketballers on the list and there is likely to be even more next year after teen sensation Dante Exum's decision to declare for the NBA Draft.

peter.rolfe@news.com.au