Currently, one of the important areas of sustainable development in the Russian Federation is thedevelopment of physical culture and sports, which contributes to an increase in the population of the country,an increase in the standard of living of citizens, the creation of comfortable conditions for their residence, aswell as opportunities for self-realization and disclosure of the talent of each person. The article is devotedto the development of legal and economic regulation of wages of athletes. In addition, the paper analyzesthe most discussed theoretical issues of legal regulation of labor relations in sports to attract attention fromthe state and the business community. In accordance with the norms in force in the Russian Federation, thesalary of workers in the sports industry includes three main components: the official salary, compensationand incentive payments. When it comes to professional athletes and coaches, incentive payments are usuallyrelated to achievements and results (for example, the number of points earned, the number of goals scoredor assists, etc.). A feature of the remuneration of athletes with high achievements is a large gap in the size ofthe official salary and bonus (incentive) payments. The bonus part of wages, being a variable, is of interestfor scientific research from the point of view of its (incentive payments) legal regulation, economic analysisand financial calculation. According to the authors, the salary of athletes and their coaches is influenced bya large number of factors that are indicators of the individual achievements of athletes. An additive modelof the formation of the wage fund of a sports organization (club, team) will determine the significanceof factors affecting the wages of athletes. The authors come to the conclusion that in modern conditions,modeling the wage fund of a sports organization as a whole will allow to determine and take into account theimportance of individual indicators (indicators, achievements) of professional athletes and their influenceon the formation of the bonus part of wages.