Professional athletes and injury insurance: A better way forward

Abstract

Professional athletes are workers: sport is their job. Yet they are excluded from workers’ compensation schemes. This denies them the safety net provided to other Australian workers. In a world in which sport has been corporatised and commercialised, their exclusion is inequitable and anachronistic. At the same time, however, sport is different. The frequency with which injuries occur, and the speed with which they must be treated and athletes returned to play (work), do not lend themselves to bureaucratic compensation schemes. What is needed is a bespoke scheme – one tailored to professional sports’ unique needs and risk profile.