Martin Offiah on the Salary Cap

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Offiah is one of my favourite players to. But I am disappointed that he thinks players don't have credibility because they are not earning millions of pounds a year.

Yes, say they deserve it but don't say they don't have credibility when they are earning less.

Offiah has always been about the limelight, money, fame, attention - that is cool, but he shouldn't judge everyone else's successes by his measures. 

One of the best athletes I have ever seen, but not a likeable character. 

[Wigan Riversider]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Offiah has always been about the limelight, money, fame, attention - that is cool, but he shouldn't judge everyone else's successes by his measures. 

One of the best athletes I have ever seen, but not a likeable character. 

Many aren't likeable characters.

[Dunbar]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Offiah has always been about the limelight, money, fame, attention - that is cool, but he shouldn't judge everyone else's successes by his measures. 

One of the best athletes I have ever seen, but not a likeable character. 

Have to say he comes across poorly in this article.  It is positioned as him saying how the salary cap is holding back the sport (which it may be) but multiple quotes suggest the only thing he has respect for is how much someone earns.

[Dunbar]

1 minute ago, Wigan Riversider said:

Many aren't likeable characters.

I met my favourite Rugby League player once when I was a kid.  It taught me a valuable lesson... enjoy watching them play but don't meet them as you may very well be let down.

[Wigan Riversider]

6 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

I met my favourite Rugby League player once when I was a kid.  It taught me a valuable lesson... enjoy watching them play but don't meet them as you may very well be let down.

Spot on.

I once met a mega star in the entertainment world who was beyond obnoxious. Wish it had never happened in all honesty.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

I met my favourite Rugby League player once when I was a kid.  It taught me a valuable lesson... enjoy watching them play but don't meet them as you may very well be let down.

 

5 minutes ago, Wigan Riversider said:

Spot on.

I once met a mega star in the entertainment world who was beyond obnoxious. Wish it had never happened in all honesty.

The saying 'Never Meet Your Heroes' exists for a reason. 

[Grand Est]

56 minutes ago, Wigan Riversider said:

I once met a mega star in the entertainment world who was beyond obnoxious. Wish it had never happened in all honesty.

Fantastic story. Really enhanced by none of us having a clue who you are talking about.

[Wigan Riversider]

6 minutes ago, Grand Est said:

Fantastic story. Really enhanced by none of us having a clue who you are talking about.

Take That.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Wigan Riversider said:

Many aren't likeable characters.

Of course, but many top athletes are likeable. 

I get the impression Offiah thinks he is far more astute than he is, when his analysis and then things like this don't really back him up. 

But, he's entitled to his views and how he wants to behave, he does what he needs to to earn money and stay relevant.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Grand Est said:

Fantastic story. Really enhanced by none of us having a clue who you are talking about.

It’s not relevant who it is, the point is that we can admire people, possibly sportsmen or musicians. But sometimes we meet them and they are absolute ends. That’s the point.

[Liverpool Rover]

2 hours ago, Wigan Riversider said:

Take That.

The one who loves Angels?

[GUBRATS]

On 27/10/2021 at 22:04, Big Picture said:

For RL to have household names again, it needs enough money to be able to raid RU for top players like it did for Offiah and Jonathan Davies.  I'd suggest that most (if not all) of the household names in the game back then were RU converts.

Offiah wasn't a famous RU player when he signed for Widnes 

[Rugbyleaguesupporter]

It's a bit of a silly article. Some very valid points/ opinions distorted by numbers. 

In union your squad is 40 plus and forwards paid the most- so figures not quite comparable. 

The net money a SL player receives won't be miles away from (most) Union backs (excluding very high Union earners) 

And most SL players on 60-100k- which is more than the vast majority of fans who will be watching (obviously a much shorter career) 

[whatmichaelsays]

I think Offiah is conflating two separate issues. The first is media profile, the other is what players get paid, but they aren't as linked as he suggests. 

The salary cap point is fair. Our players aren't paid enough. On top of that poor pay, the sport offers often quite insecure contracts and little post-game security, and the salary cap is used as a mechanism to suppress player pay in real terms. 

Personally, I'd like to see the salary cap replaced with an FFP-style system where club spending power is linked to turnover, as I think linking on-field success to off-field performance would encourage clubs to invest in the latter. 

On @Dave T's point about who pays for this, this is already a relatively cheap sport to watch and whilst I don't want to see it go down the route of football where people are genuinely "priced out", I do think the clubs need to get better at developing their premium offering and attracting the audiences that can pay for it. As well as, of course, developing revenue streams such as commercial, retail and digital. 

On the media profile side, the players don't have profile because the clubs and the sport doesn't really try hard enough. As @Martyn Sadlerpoints out, clubs aren't willing to give access to the players and this is something that I recall Brian Carney at Sky complaining about (I recall his words being along the lines of "clubs were happy to work with us until the cheque cleared"). Media training in the sport is also pretty basic. 

We also don't seem to be feeding the media with content, providing them with material that makes it easier for them to give us column inches. There are fewer RL hacks around and the ones that are are being measured on click-through rates and social media likes - the clubs have to do their work for them in many cases. Social media content from many clubs is also pretty pedestrian. 

We can't complain about a poor media profile, either for the sport or the players, if the sport and clubs aren't willing to play the modern media game. 

I think Offiah is wrong to link poor pay and poor media profile, but he is right on them being two separate issues that need addressing. 

[Dave T]

I think Offiah would have more credibility if he was focusing on the lower end players and championing their plight for fair wages. 

But it is no surprise that he talks about ego and earning more than your mates. 

[Wigan Riversider]

8 hours ago, Liverpool Rover said:

The one who loves Angels?

How did you guess

[Tommygilf]

The leading premise reflects how the sport has gone from being about exciting entertainment first to a determined and obstinate quest for "sustainability".

It permeates the entire sport.

Owners now put less money in as a proportion than ever. If the sky money doesn't cover it, some clubs can't get the money in. It even affects how the sport is played with attritional, low risk strategy being the primary aim it seems.

It is an attitude that has always been there but some clubs at some points were always able to break out of it to sign top talent on a punt.

Sustainability isn't bad, its probably kept several clubs alive, but it is unquestionably boring.

[dkw]

13 hours ago, Dunbar said:

I met my favourite Rugby League player once when I was a kid.  It taught me a valuable lesson... enjoy watching them play but don't meet them as you may very well be let down.

Conversely I met loads of my RL heroes and almost every one of them were decent, likeable and had time for me. One or two were morons, but that's a normal ratio in life. 

[Live after death]

2 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Offiah wasn't a famous RU player when he signed for Widnes 

Yep, came to RL as he felt he was often overlooked because of colour and felt League was more inclusive (which it mainly is) with the exception of Davies mostly big name union converts failed spectacularly, Gallagher, Terry Holmes, Bishop Dai Young, the better ones were all lesser names who suited league better likes of Bentley, Roland Phillips, Kevin Ellis and off course Offiah. 

[Liverpool Rover]

1 hour ago, Wigan Riversider said:

How did you guess

That was who immediately came to mind.

[Dunbar]

1 hour ago, dkw said:

Conversely I met loads of my RL heroes and almost every one of them were decent, likeable and had time for me. One or two were morons, but that's a normal ratio in life. 

Yep. That was my point.

[DavidM]

1 hour ago, dkw said:

Conversely I met loads of my RL heroes and almost every one of them were decent, likeable and had time for me. One or two were morons, but that's a normal ratio in life. 

Yeh sorry about that i was having a bad day 

[Scubby]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

I think Offiah would have more credibility if he was focusing on the lower end players and championing their plight for fair wages. 

But it is no surprise that he talks about ego and earning more than your mates. 

If he gets the sport talking about the scandalous levels of pay for some SL squad players who are in or close to the 17 every week he has done his jobs IMO - whatever his methods. The minimum wage for a SL player actually got cut to £15k last year (I believe it was circa £20k before).

[Big Picture]

4 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

Offiah wasn't a famous RU player when he signed for Widnes 

In that case, what accounts for him having a bigger impact on Widnes' crowds than Jonathan Davies had?

Unless I'm mistaken he did have a high enough profile and stature to be thought about in connection with the England RU team, why else would he have been said to have been "overlooked" for it?

[Scubby]

Just now, Big Picture said:

In that case, what accounts for him having a bigger impact on Widnes' crowds than Jonathan Davies had?

Unless I'm mistaken he did have a high enough profile and stature to be thought about in connection with the England RU team, why else would he have been said to have been "overlooked" for it?

Because he was mesmeric from the first game. He scored a huge number of tries in his 10-15 first games. TBF to @GUBRATS he was pretty low profile until he got on the field and then didn't look back.