Except the tennis players didn't pay anything, the AO (which is partially government funded) and state governments of Vic and SA (which are tax payer funded) covered the cost of their HQ. Whilst arriving Aussies do have to pay for their HQ.
The cost isn't the real issue, its the hypocrisy that they can find a way to do things safely for sport but not for Aussies? The virus doesnt respect celebrity staus.
If we didn't have pitiful caps on arriving aussies I couldn't care less about exemptions for sports brats but i abhor the double standard.
Those sports events are no more important to the local economies than international students are (in fact because students stay years, they support many more aspects of the economy from housing, to local retail, to tourism).