A lot is being discussed about the brand new deviantWEAR - Design Battle 2009, specially the 1000 bucks prize.
But I think there is a lot of things we have to take a look BEFORE we say "wow, that's a huge price!"
Just as information, and I hope I get some help from the pros here, there are some tricky points inside the Rules.

First: Just by submitting your art, you are giving DA the rights to use it whatever way they want, for a one year period:

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e. iii. during the Promotion Period and for one (1) year thereafter eligible Works submitted to the Contest may be posted at the Contest Site or otherwise displayed in any form and media in connection with promotion of the Contest;
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If you win, you give DA the rights to use your art whatever way they want, for a 10 years period (!). During this time you CANNOT USE YOUR ART wherever else, even for promoting yourself or your work:

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e.iv. during the ten (10) year period immediately following the Promotion Period ( the “ Exclusive Period”, deviantART may (but will not be obligated to) display prize winning Works in any form and media in connection with the promotion of its businesses;

v. during the Exclusive Period deviantART may use prize winning Works in any manner whatsoever in connection with T-Shirts, other clothing, merchandise and prints or physical and digital reproductions of the Work and in this regard Entrant agrees that the rights specified in this paragraph 1(e)(v) will be exclusive to deviantART for the Exclusive Period;

vi. Entrant may not authorize or permit any prize winning Work to be used to promote any product or service of any other party during the Exclusive Period or thereafter;
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If you "win", DA will pay you $1000 as an advance in royalties. If they sell more than 1000 t-shirts, they MAY pay you more, but they are not obligated to tell you how many t-shirts were sold:

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3.b. (...) deviantART is not required to actually sell any quantity of T-shirts containing the winning design and makes no representation with respect to the number of T-shirts that may ultimately be sold. (...)
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And they can put your art in any piece of marketable material, not just t-shirts. Of course they will pay you royalties, but they will say how much (and the prize can be substituted by anything worth $1000):

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3.b. (...) deviantART will establish in its sole discretion a reasonable royalty for any use of the winning design in items made for sale other than on T-shirts and as contemplated in paragraph 1(e)(v), above.

3.c (...) deviantART reserves right to substitute for non-cash prizes or portions thereof items of equal or greater value.
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And, last but not least, DA cannot be held responsible if an alien invasion takes place on Earth and mess with the contest:

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6. (...) [DA] reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify, cancel, terminate or suspend this Contest should any virus, bug, technical failures, unauthorized human or alien intervention or other causes beyond deviantART’s reasonable control corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness or proper conduct of the Contest.
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So, for short: if there are 500 entries in each category, DA is paying $2 for one year-exclusive-right contract per art submitted. Quite a deal, any pro can tell you.

If you win, you get $1000 for a 10 years exclusive rights contract. It's a good amount of money, right? I don't think so. Think about all the money DA can make with your art, for ten long years. Does it seem a lot yet?

If you are thinking seriously about becoming an professional artist, you should start thinking and questioning this kind of "big deal". Contests are never fair with the artists.

Ok, this may be your chance of showing your work to a large audience, I agree. But I also think that DA could be a LOT more artist-friendly. A ten-year exclusive rights contract? I'd charge them a lot more than $1000. Just for the t-shirts. And what is wrong with Creative Commons licenses? Why can't I submit my art with a CC license?

Think about it!