Another promising young player lost to the NRL ??

[Eddie]

21 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Wigan have long been one of the British game's biggest clubs, able to spend more than most others.  Their accounts have shown losses for a few years now, and declining turnover too.  Their total revenue for 2019 was 6.551 million £, which is down 490,000 £ from three years earlier and their losses over the five years from 2015-2019 totalled just under 3.1 million £.  That total is almost half of their annual revenue, and in just five years.

So just which clubs do you seriously think could afford to spend more than they are now?

If the cap was higher the competition would be better, so attendances and merch sales would go up and clubs could spend more. 

[Southerner]

We’re fortunate to have the NRL as it’s a great incentive for homegrown players to pursue a career in Rugby League. It’s a wonderful country to live and the earnings potential is 4-fold that of the SL.

[unapologetic pedant]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

If the cap was higher the competition would be better, so attendances and merch sales would go up and clubs could spend more. 

When English RL had no salary cap even some of the top clubs were perpetually on the edge of collapse. Widnes were the second most successful club of the late-80s/early-90s. Towards the end of that period they had to sell almost their whole squad just to survive. They`d spent far more than they could afford, and their on-field success had done nothing to ensure their long-term viability.

We are not Soccer. There isn`t a nationwide well of popularity our clubs can draw on. A beggar-thy-neighbour approach in RL takes everybody down. 

More relevant to our problems is that if Huddersfield were able to spend more to stop Will Pryce leaving for the NRL, in a couple of years the average person in Huddersfield will probably still have no idea who Will Pryce is.

[Damien]

5 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:

When English RL had no salary cap even some of the top clubs were perpetually on the edge of collapse. Widnes were the second most successful club of the late-80s/early-90s. Towards the end of that period they had to sell almost their whole squad just to survive. They`d spent far more than they could afford, and their on-field success had done nothing to ensure their long-term viability.

Substitute Widnes for Bradford and we have exactly the same scenario with the salary cap. The salary cap certainly does not stop clubs going bust or spending what they can't afford.

[Saint Toppy]

4 hours ago, Davo5 said:

Swim in the sea in Blackpool

You obviously have never been there.

Even the shopping trollies & floating turds still make it safer than Bondi with the rip tides and sharks

[The Rocket]

1 hour ago, Southerner said:

We’re fortunate to have the NRL as it’s a great incentive for homegrown players to pursue a career in Rugby League. It’s a wonderful country to live and the earnings potential is 4-fold that of the SL.

Well said. For all its` faults Rugby League as a game would be far, far worse off if we didn`t have at least one very strong, and well resourced Rugby League competition.

From todays TRL news page, Treiziste Diarist Pierre Carcau writing :

Believe it or not, the insular-leaning NRL does have a positive influence in France; unlike Super League or the domestic Elite 1, the Australian competition is easy to follow in this country. Much easier than any RL competitions organised on French soil to be honest.

Beinsport broadcast not only the NRL, but also the State of Origin series and other NRL sponsored games, such as the Indigenous Round.

French people (and among them the Parisian mainstream journalists, said to be the most influential) access these images and the remarkable display of skills and very talented players. The games are commentated by a talented duo: Rodolphe Pires and Louis Bonney, the most well-known French callers.

With NRL on a national, although paying, channel, it’s very difficult to completely sweep “Rugby à XIII” under the carpet and hope that no one will watch it, even by chance.

Nowadays, except of course the most biased rugby union traditionalists, every rugby connoisseur can’t ignore what’s happening in Australia in terms of level of play. French rugby union professionals even take inspiration from it.

People mightn`t realise the amount of attention that our visiting English compatriots get down here either, often being the first ones sought out for post-match interviews, it must be nice to be at the centre of the sporting universe for a while, even if it is only in Australia. 

 

[unapologetic pedant]

23 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

It is a shame and a worry to lose players from our sport to the NRL. The question we should be asking ourselves as a game over here is how much can we afford to pay, not how low can we go to keep the poorer clubs in the league. We have tried to make a salary cap work, but it has become a constraint which guarantees that we cannot keep talent, and thus puts us into a slow slide into oblivion. Ditch it, and let the market decide. 

In a genuine free market, losers go bust. Would it be better for English RL if Wakefield and Salford didn`t exist?

With the prospect that the year following their demise, the next two poorest clubs left in SL could also founder and disappear.

[Dunbar]

I've got nothing against Super League being a salary capped league.

What I do object to is how that cap has been ground down over the years so that it represents significantly less today than it did almost 20 years ago.

In 2002 the cap was set at £1.8M while today it is £2.1M.  But in real terms, £1.8M in 2002 is worth £3M today according to the Bank of England inflation calculator which means that £900k of spend available to the clubs has been eroded.

Yes, we have some exceptions with home grown and the marquee player regulations but that doesn't help emerging young stars to earn the kind of money that will keep them in the game over here - a part of the £900k would though.

Yes, have a salary cap but don't have it set at 43% below the value 20 years ago otherwise we are just dragging the game down. 

[unapologetic pedant]

35 minutes ago, Damien said:

Substitute Widnes for Bradford and we have exactly the same scenario with the salary cap. The salary cap certainly does not stop clubs going bust or spending what they can't afford.

It makes it far less likely. 

If clubs are breaching the cap or finding other ways to overspend, I`m not sure how giving them carte blanche will help.

We need to grow the game. On-field success for a few richer clubs will not do that. Investment in grass roots and a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats strategy is the only way. A pro RL club winning games will yield little profit if not enough people know or care about what they are winning.

[whatmichaelsays]

18 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

I've got nothing against Super League being a salary capped league.

What I do object to is how that cap has been ground down over the years so that it represents significantly less today than it did almost 20 years ago.

In 2002 the cap was set at £1.8M while today it is £2.1M.  But in real terms, £1.8M in 2002 is worth £3M today according to the Bank of England inflation calculator which means that £900k of spend available to the clubs has been eroded.

Yes, we have some exceptions with home grown and the marquee player regulations but that doesn't help emerging young stars to earn the kind of money that will keep them in the game over here - a part of the £900k would though.

Yes, have a salary cap but don't have it set at 43% below the value 20 years ago otherwise we are just dragging the game down. 

100%. It's criminal that the salary cap doesn't, at a very minimum, keep pace with inflation. 

Personally I'd prefer an FFP-style system that is linked to club turnover and has a mechanism to limit so-called "financial doping" through directors loans that will never be called in (in order to encourage clubs to invest in commercial growth) but if we are to have a hard cap, then at the very least peg it to the cost of living so that our talent isn't collectively having pay cuts imposed on them. 

[unapologetic pedant]

13 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

What I do object to is how that cap has been ground down over the years so that it represents significantly less today than it did almost 20 years ago.

Yes, have a salary cap but don't have it set at 43% below the value 20 years ago otherwise we are just dragging the game down. 

 

1 minute ago, whatmichaelsays said:

Personally I'd prefer an FFP-style system that is linked to club turnover and has a mechanism to limit so-called "financial doping" through directors loans that will never be called in (in order to encourage clubs to invest in commercial growth) 

If memory serves, the original cap in the late-90s was 50% of a club`s income rather than an absolute figure. The advantage of that was that it incentivized clubs to pursue success off the field, rather than simply think in terms of paying players to win games.

[whatmichaelsays]

34 minutes ago, unapologetic pedant said:

 

If memory serves, the original cap in the late-90s was 50% of a club`s income rather than an absolute figure. The advantage of that was that it incentivized clubs to pursue success off the field, rather than simply think in terms of paying players to win games.

That's my recollection of it as well. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, unapologetic pedant said:

In a genuine free market, losers go bust. Would it be better for English RL if Wakefield and Salford didn`t exist?

With the prospect that the year following their demise, the next two poorest clubs left in SL could also founder and disappear.

Yes. 

Better free than a slave.

Neither Widnes of Bradford have disappeared. Widnes spent a decade in Super League and Bradford will have their turn one day.

Would you accept a cap on your salary to protect your competitors? No you wouldn't.

[graveyard johnny]

the pryce kid has proved absolutely nothing yet in SL - wasn't his uncle karl gonna be the best english outside back since billy boston? gonna be? never was!

[Wakefield Ram]

Maybe the chance to go and live in Sydney, play in the best league in the world, go to Bondi beach, is also a draw? It's not always just money.

[The Rocket]

3 hours ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Maybe the chance to go and live in Sydney, play in the best league in the world, go to Bondi beach, is also a draw? It's not always just money.

Ask @fighting irish about coming to Sydney as a young man and his first visit to an Australian beach, I think the expression he used was something like ` bottom jaw-dropping onto ground `.

[The Frying Scotsman]

1 hour ago, The Rocket said:

Ask @fighting irish about coming to Sydney as a young man and his first visit to an Australian beach, I think the expression he used was something like ` bottom jaw-dropping onto ground `.

When was that?

[The Rocket]

18 minutes ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

When was that?

Probably nearly forty years ago, but you`ll have to ask Irish when exactly.

I remember there was a fashion around then when some of the more daring girls wore crocheted bikinis, phew !!!. How much can a koala bear !

[DiddyDave]

Don`t be fooled by the apparent wealth of the NRL. This last two seasons the NRL has taken a massive hit thru covid, the 2021 competition now shifting lock, stock and barrel into Queensland, families as well. All of this is costing big time plus a report in the paper a few days ago reported all clubs want to receive up to $30 million in lost revenue thru no crowds allowed in. If the covid takes hold in Queensland in the last few weeks of the season, there`ll be no game, no matter how much clout Peter V`Landys has with the Premier. They still talk about clubs signing million dollar players, the way things are going, top players will be lucky to be on half of that cos the game can`t continue taking these huge financial hits and same with the AFL.

[Copa]

4 hours ago, The Rocket said:

I remember there was a fashion around then when some of the more daring girls wore crocheted bikinis, phew !!!.

I remember that…

[Scubby]

1 hour ago, DiddyDave said:

Don`t be fooled by the apparent wealth of the NRL. This last two seasons the NRL has taken a massive hit thru covid, the 2021 competition now shifting lock, stock and barrel into Queensland, families as well. All of this is costing big time plus a report in the paper a few days ago reported all clubs want to receive up to $30 million in lost revenue thru no crowds allowed in. If the covid takes hold in Queensland in the last few weeks of the season, there`ll be no game, no matter how much clout Peter V`Landys has with the Premier. They still talk about clubs signing million dollar players, the way things are going, top players will be lucky to be on half of that cos the game can`t continue taking these huge financial hits and same with the AFL.

As an agreement with the RLPA, they sill have to pay at least 95% of their cap in any one season so that is A$150-A$160m on players before third party and local trained allowances each season. When many young SL players are on A$25k as promising teenagers - if they have talent they are easy pickings to gamble on minimum NRL wage (A$100k).

[unapologetic pedant]

14 hours ago, Leonard said:

Would you accept a cap on your salary to protect your competitors? No you wouldn't.

Neither each individual player`s desire for higher pay, nor each individual club`s desire for on-field success, amount to a strategy for growing the game.

A SL club`s competitors off the field are primarily other sports and pastimes rather than other SL clubs. Unless the pro game collectively secures a larger share of the leisure market, the size of every player`s slice of the English RL cake will continue to shrink.

Within RL, our only rival league, the NRL, operates a salary cap. They do so to protect the prosperity of their premiership in a highly competitive sports market.

The salary cap also functions as a trammel on the machinations of agents. 

[Ant]

Jeez there's some right doom merchants on this thread.

The SCs job is to stop clubs self destructing, but that has in no way shape or form stopped Leeds, Wigan and Saints absolutely dominating the game here.

So, the richest clubs still win the league. 

What it DOES do, is also make those club spend more on their infrastructure so they have excellent development  structures, and while the Giants havent had much onfield success, they too have an excellent development programme. (The benefit of having resources to spend, but not spaffing them on over paid primadonnas)

Think back to when SL began, no cap, wages went through the roof (long overdue mind) and how many clubs went pop within a season or two? 

The SC is a necessary evil, but I'd say its absolutely necessary. 

You want more parity with the NRL spending power, get a better TV deal, that's how they do it.

P.s. Will Pryce signed a contract extension with the Giants so he isnt going anywhere for a while 

[Davo5]

1 hour ago, Ant said:

Jeez there's some right doom merchants on this thread.

The SCs job is to stop clubs self destructing, but that has in no way shape or form stopped Leeds, Wigan and Saints absolutely dominating the game here.

So, the richest clubs still win the league. 

What it DOES do, is also make those club spend more on their infrastructure so they have excellent development  structures, and while the Giants havent had much onfield success, they too have an excellent development programme. (The benefit of having resources to spend, but not spaffing them on over paid primadonnas)

Think back to when SL began, no cap, wages went through the roof (long overdue mind) and how many clubs went pop within a season or two? 

The SC is a necessary evil, but I'd say its absolutely necessary. 

You want more parity with the NRL spending power, get a better TV deal, that's how they do it.

P.s. Will Pryce signed a contract extension with the Giants so he isnt going anywhere for a while 

The main problem with the Superleague  salary cap is the fact it’s hardly changed since it was brought in meaning in real terms players are getting paid less these days.

I wouldn’t take young Pryce signing a contract extension as the end of things,it just means an NRL club might have to pay a fee,although I hope he stays in Superleague.

[JM2010]

1 hour ago, Ant said:

P.s. Will Pryce signed a contract extension with the Giants so he isnt going anywhere for a while 

At least if he does go the Giants could get a decent transfer fee for him