Brown's $15m salary breaks new boundaries

The gap between rich and poor may be widening in British football, but not even Roy Keane can command a salary that exceeds an entire Premiership team.

Only eight years after baseball's average salary broke the million-dollar mark, it nearly reached $2m on this week's opening day, falling just short at $1,988,034 (£1,250,335). And the World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kevin Brown will make $15,714,286 this year - only slightly less than the $16,519,500 the Minnesota Twins are paying their entire roster. The Arizona pitcher Randy Johnson is the second-best paid player at $13.35m, followed by Baltimore's Albert Belle ($12,868,670).

"I don't know if it is negative or positive for the game," the New York Mets' catcher Mike Piazza said. "It rewards guys with talent who have worked hard all their lives, rode the buses in the minors and now are getting paid very well for what they do."