Elstone talks TV deal, Private Equity and next season (ish)

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Dave T said:

The top clubs run out of cap allowance though. Its why even the top clubs have a decent amount of younger (cheaper) players in their squad instead of 25 top class experienced players. 

True, but they pay less for their better players, and indeed their juniors are better for less too. The cap works entirely in their favour from a winning the comp position.

[Rupert Prince]

48 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Let clubs who do have the money, Leigh for example, take their place.

But as soon as say, Leigh take their place they then get back relegated... and possibly go bust because they over paid.

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

True, but they pay less for their better players, and indeed their juniors are better for less too. The cap works entirely in their favour from a winning the comp position.

Their juniors being better is the reason they are dominant. Wigan, Leeds and Saints have the strongest amateur and youth setups, and they are the most dominant teams. 

I also think the above contradicts the levelling down point. If the cap was helping the stronger clubs to win, it'd be by allowing them to snap up the best players. No cap would absolutely allow them to dominate, whereas now, they are dominant because of the best setup and infrastructure. I don't see that as a bad thing. 

And if a club has money, they can buy themselves into those top places, as we have seen. 

[Tommygilf]

11 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

But as soon as say, Leigh take their place they then get back relegated... and possibly go bust because they over paid.

Didn't have enough money then!

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Didn't have enough money then!

Do pray tell us , who does ?

[Tommygilf]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Their juniors being better is the reason they are dominant. Wigan, Leeds and Saints have the strongest amateur and youth setups, and they are the most dominant teams. 

I also think the above contradicts the levelling down point. If the cap was helping the stronger clubs to win, it'd be by allowing them to snap up the best players. No cap would absolutely allow them to dominate, whereas now, they are dominant because of the best setup and infrastructure. I don't see that as a bad thing. 

And if a club has money, they can buy themselves into those top places, as we have seen. 

Nah, ultimately you have to weigh up whether a rubbish club is worth the risk, which is mitigated by finances, thats true of both juniors and senior players. 

To invest in salaries to a difference that actually matters to turn heads, some clubs are absolutely limited by the cap being as it is.

[GUBRATS]

16 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

But as soon as say, Leigh take their place they then get back relegated... and possibly go bust because they over paid.

I don't really know why once again Leigh are brought into a discussion , nobody has suggested Leigh could take SL by storm 

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Do pray tell us , who does ?

Warrington, Hull, Catalans, Huddersfield or Cas given a good stadium even. Salford under Koukash were able to.

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Nah, ultimately you have to weigh up whether a rubbish club is worth the risk, which is mitigated by finances, thats true of both juniors and senior players. 

To invest in salaries to a difference that actually matters to turn heads, some clubs are absolutely limited by the cap being as it is.

Which clubs ?

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Warrington, Hull, Catalans, Huddersfield or Cas given a good stadium even. Salford under Koukash were able to.

Yes , all of these have come close , so you are saying the cap is restricting these clubs from outspending Leeds,Wigan and Saints ? 

Also cut CAS from this , they don't have the stadium , and even if they do get one , it won't make them any richer 

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Yes , all of these have come close , so you are saying the cap is restricting these clubs from outspending Leeds,Wigan and Saints ? 

Also cut CAS from this , they don't have the stadium , and even if they do get one , it won't make them any richer 

I'm saying they're at a varying level of disadvantage to start with that inescapably requires financial investment to overcome 

[GUBRATS]

8 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I'm saying they're at a varying level of disadvantage to start with that inescapably requires financial investment to overcome 

Yes , any more blatantly obvious things you want to tell us ? 

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Yes , any more blatantly obvious things you want to tell us ? 

Dunno, you keep asking for the blatantly obvious to be told to you

[M j M]

30 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

34 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

ultimately you have to weigh up whether a rubbish club is worth the risk

Which clubs ?

I thought you didn't want Leigh bringing into this?

[GUBRATS]

18 minutes ago, M j M said:

I thought you didn't want Leigh bringing into this?

Fair enough , I'm out , have fun discussing nonsense 

[Scotchy1]

15 hours ago, Oxford said:

It is designed to stop every club from going broke, like Bradford did, chasing success. It has neither worked very well in that nor prevented Leeds & Wigan from having the edge because it's an SC with caveats. Keeping the comp competitive was the last thing on the minds of those that brought it in, otherwise they would have made it the same for everyone and put other things in place to pull the lower end up by their boot straps.

It isnt designed in that way at all. Bradford went bust chasing success with the SC because the hard cap figure bore no relation to their financial position.

Just as now if some clubs were to spend the full cap they would go bust, for others they could afford to spend more. Because the cap doesnt exist to ensure financial probity. 

[Dave T]

11 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Nah, ultimately you have to weigh up whether a rubbish club is worth the risk, which is mitigated by finances, thats true of both juniors and senior players. 

To invest in salaries to a difference that actually matters to turn heads, some clubs are absolutely limited by the cap being as it is.

We've seen how much the clubs want to increase the cap based on the quality of marquee players. 

We see top clubs have to release their squad players and move players around the league as cap budget is spent. 

A quick look back at Wigan's squad in 1990 shows 18 internationals in their squad, at a time when there were fewer international teams. 

Ultimately we can always claim a cap will limit some clubs, but many many sports have them, people either like them or not, but it ain't a unique SL issue. 

[Oxford]

9 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

It isnt designed in that way at all. Bradford went bust chasing success with the SC because the hard cap figure bore no relation to their financial position.

Which is another way of just saying it didn't work! ..... Is there an echo in here?

 

9 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

Just as now if some clubs were to spend the full cap they would go bust, for others they could afford to spend more. Because the cap doesnt exist to ensure financial probity. 

This doesn't mean it wasn't meant to do that, it just means it's an inadequate vehicle for the job. Look,  just imagine if we had a governement made of people brought up to be in charge, who were inefficient, incompetent and whose talents were well under those required to do the job. Well then we'd have the salary cap in 10 Downing Street. That would be pretty dire wouldn't it?

[frank]

11 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

I don't really know why once again Leigh are brought into a discussion , nobody has suggested Leigh could take SL by storm 

They certainly didn't on their last couple of visits.

[Harry Stottle]

13 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

If by underhanded you mean players looked at Leeds and winning trophies and at 10k extra a year from Wakey or Cas and no trophies and choosing Leeds then by all means.

If its more dubious I thought you were better than that.

I didn't imply anything Tommy, I merely made a suggestion.

So we agree it is a lack of Quality player's to go round that is keeping the richer clubs at the top.

[Scotchy1]

12 hours ago, Dave T said:

If the cap allows for more quality players to remain at the 'lesser' teams then there is an argument that these teams are being levelled up instead of constantly having all of their players taken and stacked up in squads. If these lower teams offer better competition then that could be seen as better for the standard of the comp. Its a two sided coin, if you want to describe it as a levelling up you can, if you want to describe it as levelling down, you can, it's all on your outlook and either is correct, even though some will portray their view as fact. 

Where we do have a challenge is versus richer comps like the NRL and RU, but you ultimately need to make a decision whether the comp can afford these players from richer comps. Even those leagues have salary caps set at their relevant limit. 

I don't disagree that on the surface it would look like cap increases should be welcomed, but it's not me having to spend hundreds of thousands of quid every year to balance the books. 

It isnt a perspective issue. 

The cap takes restricts the top and to make the bottom more competitive, It is a levelling down mechanism. Thats simply what it is. It isnt a two sided coin. Its just a levelling down mechanism. 

We have fallen way down a pointless rabbit hole of sophistry to pretend that levelling down and levelling up are the same thing. They clearly arent. 

It is is important that the game understands the cap does level down (which it does, the game doesnt pretend that the SC isnt a measure to increase competitiveness) because some levelling down can be a good thing for the competition. But the how and why we do that is equally important because there are also negative consequences of doing so and the tools we use to do that must also be correct otherwise those negative consequences can be exacerbated. 

The question that we should be asking is, if we want a more competitive league and we are prepared to level down to do that, what is the best way of doing so. Because the SC hasnt proven itself fantastic at that job.

[Dave T]

11 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

I'm saying they're at a varying level of disadvantage to start with that inescapably requires financial investment to overcome 

The cap helped these clubs compete with giants like Wigan and Leeds. I know that is frowned upon, but that is just opinion. 

My team Warrington were terrible, playing out of a ###### ground, with low crowds playing rubbish Rugby under coaching legends like Steve Anderson and David Planger at the turn of the century. The cap didn't hold Wire back from being able to progress to a club at the top table making top quality signings. 

[Dave T]

Just now, Scotchy1 said:

It isnt a perspective issue. 

The cap takes restricts the top and to make the bottom more competitive, It is a levelling down mechanism. Thats simply what it is. It isnt a two sided coin. Its just a levelling down mechanism. 

We have fallen way down a pointless rabbit hole of sophistry to pretend that levelling down and levelling up are the same thing. They clearly arent. 

It is is important that the game understands the cap does level down (which it does, the game doesnt pretend that the SC isnt a measure to increase competitiveness) because some levelling down can be a good thing for the competition. But the how and why we do that is equally important because there are also negative consequences of doing so and the tools we use to do that must also be correct otherwise those negative consequences can be exacerbated. 

The question that we should be asking is, if we want a more competitive league and we are prepared to level down to do that, what is the best way of doing so. Because the SC hasnt proven itself fantastic at that job.

You can't ignore the levelling up at the bottom, as these players are not all pilfered off to the top clubs. 

I remember in the early 90s even top talent at my club like Martin Crompton was hoovered up by the likes of Wigan. Just in case. We were often made worse as clubs signed up players for their reserves. 

 

[Oxford]

2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The cap helped these clubs compete with giants like Wigan and Leeds. I know that is frowned upon, but that is just opinion. 

My team Warrington were terrible, playing out of a ###### ground, with low crowds playing rubbish Rugby under coaching legends like Steve Anderson and David Planger at the turn of the century. The cap didn't hold Wire back from being able to progress to a club at the top table making top quality signings. 

Well going to a stadium they own? And get revenue from, helped a bit Dave.

Isn't the cap still related to income?

[Damien]

2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The cap helped these clubs compete with giants like Wigan and Leeds. I know that is frowned upon, but that is just opinion. 

My team Warrington were terrible, playing out of a ###### ground, with low crowds playing rubbish Rugby under coaching legends like Steve Anderson and David Planger at the turn of the century. The cap didn't hold Wire back from being able to progress to a club at the top table making top quality signings. 

Was it the cap though or was it huge increases in TV funding that greatly reduces the levels of difference between the haves and have nots? TV funding ensures that all clubs can now comfortably run full time squads etc. I think that has caused a far bigger difference than anything done by the cap.