how do sponsored players get paid?

I was wondering, how do pros that are sponsored by sites get paid? do they get some amount in their accounts and are required to play a certain amount of hands a month with it? or are they paid completely seperately?

how much do the sites pay them, and how much does it vary from player to player?

It varies, most of the Full Tilt sponsered players (supposedly) get $35 an hour and 100% rakeback. Not sure about Pokerstars or anything else. Of course, guys like Ivey, Lederer, Ferguson, etc get infinite monies because of their stake in Full Tilt.

i think they also get bought in to many tournaments by their sponsor. i know pokerstars and ultimatebet do this, not sure about full tilt. must be nice having someone pay $10k for you to play in the main event....

Nice. No rake. Free money. That's life I wanna live to.
(IF it isn't even enough they steal everyones money they get no rake and free money to start with ) Lucky bastards!