Has the Salary cap failed

[yipyee]

With St helens dominating for the last 4 years is this proof the salary cap has failed and should it be raised or removed altogether ?

[Jughead]

No. It’s proof that Saints manage it better than most.

Should it be raised? Yeah, probably. Wakefield or Cas wouldn’t be any closer to a title, mind. It would be a continuation of the same clubs as many of those have income generating assets and sound structures and pathways in place that would continue with a slightly bigger cap. A bigger cap wouldn’t suddenly tip the competition on its head. 

[Madrileño]

It is dismally low.

People will say players are not being lost to "rival sports" but the best athletes now choose other sports at a very young age as career prospects in rugby league are not especially attractive.  

Teams are running with pathetically small squads, so 3 or 4 injuries and they are left with a bunch of kids, which simply dilutes the level of the flagship division. 

I am not anti salary cap, but it should be a % of income IMO. It should be in place to ensure solvency, not to create some sort of race to the bottom. Incentivise clubs to grow/generate income. The cap can be used to ensure that some of that income goes towards vital infrastructure.  

Edited February 22, 2023 by Madrileño

[Wigan Riversider]

47 minutes ago, yipyee said:

With St helens dominating for the last 4 years is this proof the salary cap has failed and should it be raised or removed altogether ?

Failed totally.

Remove completely.

A restriction of trade.

French RU has an apparently higher cap than England RU. Players go where the money is on offer.

If clubs are bankrolled, players will play, supporters will enjoy watching quality.

[Magic Superbeetle]

The main problem is the “purpose” of the cap. The rules state;

Quote

The core objectives of the Salary Cap are:

• To ensure that the competitions remains competitive and therefore attractive to spectators and commercial partners by preventing Clubs with greater financial resources dominating the competition and by ensuring a balanced spread of players among clubs;
• To prevent Clubs trading beyond their means and/or entering into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements; and
• To protect the welfare and interests of all Players.

So let’s take each objective;

The competition remains competitive; this is an abject failure, and what’s more we now seem to be at a point where the cap actually entrenches the successful clubs. The caps own rules for marquee players works against this aim. It’s a complete contradiction to suggest to suggest the league is competitive by limiting the spending power of the biggest clubs but whoops except for those two.

There are two main reasons for this though;

- Maturity of the academy. Saints losing Coote and Fages at the end of 2021 was hailed as a sign of the value of the cap and a demonstration of it working, but do we realistically think that Saints would have lost those players if Welsby and Dodd weren’t coming through? I don’t. Saints Wigan and Leeds can have the luxury of losing players to a bigger contract where their pipelines ford them, locking their surplus players in bigger contracts at other clubs. 
- the benefit of trophy bonuses and international bonuses. Both don’t count on the cap and if Wigan and Wakefield offer the same contract Wigan will likely win out because these bonuses are more likely to come to fruition.

the clubs avoid financial burden; again the marquee rule is a mockery of this objective. A club choosing to sign a “marquee” on 1m/year that they can’t afford means that they’re just as likely to be burdened. Though most clubs do seem to have tended to avoid the rules, and I’m sure someone could point to the current strife a lot of the English RU clubs find themselves in to demonstrate this objective has been successful. Indeed, it feels like clubs are getting themselves in a better situation with several clubs investing outside of the playing squad (HKR with the stadium, Wigan with Orrell/ Robin Park, Saints having concerts etc) which should be encouraged. I definitely believe a prerequisite for a Grade A from IMG should be ownership of your ground. However what I can’t do is attribute that success to the salary cap, as I can’t ascertain what would have happened anyway, and it’s entirely possible that my perception is just that as Bradford aren’t going belly up every 30 seconds.

Player Welfare; this is just laughable. The players union should look at what’s going on in Aus at the moment and then take a long hard look at themselves. To not even have growth in line with inflation over the 20 odd years is awful and all of the positive financial moves mentioned above have effectively come out of the pockets of our players who earn less in real terms then at any stage of the cap.

so I guess overall it’s minorly successful? However to reiterate, the caps rules don’t actually support these aims, and with a major player drain underway at the moment revisiting the purpose of the cap to better equip them to develop and maintain stats of the game without risking their financial grounding may well be very sensible… but all that does in the short term is further entrench the same teams being successful…

 

 

 

[Oxford]

If it would change anything I'd say get rid of it ....but it won't.

Are we all agreed what the cap was for?

I always considered it an attempt to stop clubs over-reaching themselves and going to the wall. It has certainly never evened up the comp.

[ELBOWSEYE]

7 hours ago, yipyee said:

With St helens dominating for the last 4 years is this proof the salary cap has failed and should it be raised or removed altogether ?

Has it failed, yes. 

Would saints have dominated in this period, probably. 

You look at the summer era and its a massive failure, its not levelled up, its not stopped clubs going bust. Its not stopped the drain of tale firstly to RU but now the NRL (who most prefer to keep them in the sport). But we still need a competitive competition here with stars who are known more than along the m62. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

I think the cap should be removed simply because we are competing with other competitions and clearly failing. We can’t afford to keep our best players. Saints’ era of success has been 25 years and counting, so the cap is down to the abject failure of management everywhere else. Given the huge wealth available to them, removing the cap wouldn’t affect them in the slightest. So ditch it but not because Saints are going to dominate for the next 5 years (at least).

I also have a bugbear about the value of the cap being distorted by playing games with tax, which would give a board made up of cross border financial experts a huge advantage (as we saw with image rights and offshore payments back in the Sculthorpe era). 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Exiled Wiganer

[Harry Stottle]

8 hours ago, Wigan Riversider said:

Failed totally.

Remove completely.

A restriction of trade.

French RU has an apparently higher cap than England RU. Players go where the money is on offer.

If clubs are bankrolled, players will play, supporters will enjoy watching quality.

So with that would you extend the number's of overseas player's at each club?

It is quite obvious that there is not enough home grown talent to spread about hence all SL teams already using the full quota of the allowed 7 non feds.

[bamfordsbeans]

One of the biggest reasons the cap has failed to level the competition in SL is that for decades Saints,Wigan and Leeds monopolise the young talent coming through.

I see no evidence that this is about to change, and the only way another team can top SL is to scrap the cap.

[Exiled Wiganer]

5 hours ago, Oxford said:

If it would change anything I'd say get rid of it ....but it won't.

Are we all agreed what the cap was for?

I always considered it an attempt to stop clubs over-reaching themselves and going to the wall. It has certainly never evened up the comp.

I like argue that it has evened up the competition. If you took Saints out of super league, then you would have an excellent competition between the other 11 teams. We already know who will win again this year and next, but saints can only beat one team per week so that leaves 5 other competitive games. Having accepted the inevitable there is much potential fun to be had.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Exiled Wiganer

[The Masked Poster]

It definitely hasn't achieved its goal, so yes it's failed. 

Whether it's done more good than harm is the $64000 question. 

[Saint Toppy]

10 hours ago, yipyee said:

With St helens dominating for the last 4 years is this proof the salary cap has failed and should it be raised or removed altogether ?

To deem it a success or a failure you have to consider what it was designed to do. It was partly to stop a handful of rich clubs just buying up all the best players in the league (so there was no repeat of the pre SL era of Wigan dominance where they just went out and bought anyone they wanted like Hanley, Gregory, Lydon, Offiah, Platt etc.) SL wanted a more even distribution of the talent and an encouragement for clubs to develop more of their own players and not just try to buy the best to gain success.

To some extent the Cap has worked, very few clubs mass buy players these days to try and win trophies (bar Warrington  ). Its no coincidence that the most successful SL clubs are the ones who switched their attention to developing their own youngsters and having pathways to bringing them into the 1st team.

The next main purpose of the SC was to try and stop clubs 'bankrupting' themselves in the pursuit of success. You only have to look at Wigan where their star player wage bill was huge compared to their income and in the end it almost bankrupted them and cost their their stadium home. Unfortunately the SC hasn't stopped clubs from financial disaster in the SL era but i'm sure it stopped many more from spending way beyond their means.

So back to the question of has the SC worked - to some extent i'd say yes it has. However where it is now failing IMO, is that it hasn't kept up with events outside the sport in the UK. It hasn't kept pace with the cost of living & salaries and it definately hasn't kept up with other sports and competitors like the NRL and Union.

I do think there's still a place for the SC in RL in the UK bit it definately needs a full review and updating.

[BladeHearts]

11 hours ago, yipyee said:

With St helens dominating for the last 4 years is this proof the salary cap has failed and should it be raised or removed altogether ?

The salary cap has allowed St Helens to become Champions of the World and as far as I can tell professional club Rugby League seems to be in a far healthier place than professional club Rugby Union which is hurtling at express pace into financial meltdown. Whilst the Gallagher Premiership downsizes to 10, Super League has a raft of clubs capable of expanding the top flight to 14 clubs if not more.

 

Its far too small a sample size to draw firm conclusions but on first sight attendances seem to be on an upward curve this season as well

[Oxford]

3 hours ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

You look at the summer era and its a massive failure, its not levelled up, its not stopped clubs going bust. Its not stopped the drain of tale firstly to RU but now the NRL (who most prefer to keep them in the sport). But we still need a competitive competition here with stars who are known more than along the m62. 

I think linking all this to "the Summer era" is a false logic.

There has been no levelling up that's true.

And although clubs have gone bust you'd have to make sure why that happened and when.

Also if you had clubs trying to compete with K&C's silly salaries you'd probably have an SL of about 4 clubs. And if you think repeat fixtures are nuisance imagine that!

WE also have to stop cheering and applauding the NRL as the be all and end all, it is far more negative and counter productive than anything else.

You're spot on the money though that we do need a competitive league. And I don't believe for one minute category A, B and C's will achieve.

 

 

[David Shepherd]

It's enforced mediocrity. It's meant to be a competitive sport, not some social equality experiment.

It allows clubs to do the bare minimum, pocket the sky cash and bumble along adding no value to the competition. The big, well run (and dare I say it, wealthy) clubs still win everything so it definitely has not achieved a more even competition.

I'd argue that it's one of the prime reasons for the decline in popularity of our sport. We're not getting the breadth of talent in at the bottom, because the salary cap makes it a pretty lousy career option for young lads. How many are content to play semi pro and have a "real" job because they're so much better off financially? Some argue that we don't lose many to Union, how many never even pick League? I know of 2 lads from the Pontefract area who played League as juniors, but are playing at pro Union clubs down south having never even considered signing with a pro League club. If we were offering real money, you'd expect those 2 lads to have stayed in the game. There must be many more examples of this happening.

Let clubs spend a percentage of their income.  It incentivises growth, punishes poor off field performance and will allow not just the signing of (relatively speaking) "stars", but help to ensure that Rugby League is a viable career path for young lads. They're professional athletes, around £2m shared between a SL size squad is peanuts.

Edited February 22, 2023 by David Shepherd

[Toby Chopra]

10 hours ago, Magic Superbeetle said:

The main problem is the “purpose” of the cap. The rules state;

So let’s take each objective;

The competition remains competitive; this is an abject failure, and what’s more we now seem to be at a point where the cap actually entrenches the successful clubs. The caps own rules for marquee players works against this aim. It’s a complete contradiction to suggest to suggest the league is competitive by limiting the spending power of the biggest clubs but whoops except for those two.

There are two main reasons for this though;

- Maturity of the academy. Saints losing Coote and Fages at the end of 2021 was hailed as a sign of the value of the cap and a demonstration of it working, but do we realistically think that Saints would have lost those players if Welsby and Dodd weren’t coming through? I don’t. Saints Wigan and Leeds can have the luxury of losing players to a bigger contract where their pipelines ford them, locking their surplus players in bigger contracts at other clubs. 
- the benefit of trophy bonuses and international bonuses. Both don’t count on the cap and if Wigan and Wakefield offer the same contract Wigan will likely win out because these bonuses are more likely to come to fruition.

the clubs avoid financial burden; again the marquee rule is a mockery of this objective. A club choosing to sign a “marquee” on 1m/year that they can’t afford means that they’re just as likely to be burdened. Though most clubs do seem to have tended to avoid the rules, and I’m sure someone could point to the current strife a lot of the English RU clubs find themselves in to demonstrate this objective has been successful. Indeed, it feels like clubs are getting themselves in a better situation with several clubs investing outside of the playing squad (HKR with the stadium, Wigan with Orrell/ Robin Park, Saints having concerts etc) which should be encouraged. I definitely believe a prerequisite for a Grade A from IMG should be ownership of your ground. However what I can’t do is attribute that success to the salary cap, as I can’t ascertain what would have happened anyway, and it’s entirely possible that my perception is just that as Bradford aren’t going belly up every 30 seconds.

Player Welfare; this is just laughable. The players union should look at what’s going on in Aus at the moment and then take a long hard look at themselves. To not even have growth in line with inflation over the 20 odd years is awful and all of the positive financial moves mentioned above have effectively come out of the pockets of our players who earn less in real terms then at any stage of the cap.

so I guess overall it’s minorly successful? However to reiterate, the caps rules don’t actually support these aims, and with a major player drain underway at the moment revisiting the purpose of the cap to better equip them to develop and maintain stats of the game without risking their financial grounding may well be very sensible… but all that does in the short term is further entrench the same teams being successful…

 

 

 

I could potentially* agree that the core objectives have been missed, but I'm less inclined to agree any of it is down to the salary cap. 

On competition, our cap is very low, yet some clubs still don't reach it, so you'd have to cut it even lower to bring more clubs into competitiveness. That's not viable. 

On financials, it may have stopped the rich clubs from stretching too far, but it hasn't stopped the poorer clubs from running into trouble, even though they don't reach the cap. It's a blunt tool, a proper FFP system would be better. 

On player welfare, the biggest issue is some of the poverty wages some of the poorer clubs pay some youngsters. I can't see how the cap effects that. 

It seems to me that if the cap's objectives have been missed, it's not to do with how the cap worked, but simply lack of money in the game, which is a different issue. 

*On the competition point, as others have said before, is it totally true, given 9 of the 12 Superleague clubs have reached a major final in the last 6 years?

Edited February 22, 2023 by Toby Chopra

[whatmichaelsays]

The cap to an extent has done some of the things it has purportedly set out to do, but I don't think it's massively clear what exactly it was set out to do.

On the "levelling the playing field" argument, there is some success we need to recognise. Whilst we still only have four names on the SL trophy, we also have a situation where all but Leigh and Wakefield have either won something or played in a major final in recent years.

But it is a blunt instrument in many other respects, because it actually entrenches certain advantages.

Bigger clubs get more value out of the salary cap than smaller clubs, who have to pay more to overcome the disadvantages they have. Tom Lineham was in the press this week talking about how "big clubs don't offer as much money". but this isn't because the top clubs are being tight - it's because the smaller clubs HAVE to offer more money and/or longer contracts to make up for the fact that they're asking players to give up a bigger chance to win silverware, play in finals and play and train in better facilities.  So if a £70k winger for Leeds becomes an £80k winger for Wakefield, that's a 14% salary cap "penalty" that smaller clubs are paying. 

So all the cap does is set a very low base cost for competing in SL, keeps it low (because it doesn't rise with inflation) and it ensures that it is the players who ultimately end up paying for the poor performance of those in club and governing body boardrooms, who are responsible for commercial growth. For the smaller clubs, it protects them from wage inflation but for the larger clubs, it also means that they can use the various addons and exemptions to the cap to channel their power and wealth into other areas that entrench the advantages that they have - particularly when it comes to youth recruitment and development. For me, a hard cap is a blunt instrument that doesn't really serve anyone well. What would be much better would be an FFP-style system that is linked to club turnover and incentivises growth. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by whatmichaelsays

[Saint Toppy]

2 hours ago, bamfordsbeans said:

One of the biggest reasons the cap has failed to level the competition in SL is that for decades Saints,Wigan and Leeds monopolise the young talent coming through.

I see no evidence that this is about to change, and the only way another team can top SL is to scrap the cap.

The SC has no bearing on a youngsters decision on which professional club to join. At that age pretty much every club offers a near similar financial package. Youngsters (or rather their families advising them) look at the wider benefits of the clubs like;

Does the club have a funded academic programme,

Does the club have good facilities and coaching to develop my game,

Does the club have a clear pathway to progress through the age groups and be given a chance to take a 1st team place,

What is their player welfare system like.

 

Part of the reason the 'bigger' clubs attract so many of the top youngsters is because they have invested and offer a more rounded package to these youngsters.

[Exiled Wiganer]

1 hour ago, Saint Toppy said:

To deem it a success or a failure you have to consider what it was designed to do. It was partly to stop a handful of rich clubs just buying up all the best players in the league (so there was no repeat of the pre SL era of Wigan dominance where they just went out and bought anyone they wanted like Hanley, Gregory, Lydon, Offiah, Platt etc.) SL wanted a more even distribution of the talent and an encouragement for clubs to develop more of their own players and not just try to buy the best to gain success.

To some extent the Cap has worked, very few clubs mass buy players these days to try and win trophies (bar Warrington  ). Its no coincidence that the most successful SL clubs are the ones who switched their attention to developing their own youngsters and having pathways to bringing them into the 1st team.

The next main purpose of the SC was to try and stop clubs 'bankrupting' themselves in the pursuit of success. You only have to look at Wigan where their star player wage bill was huge compared to their income and in the end it almost bankrupted them and cost their their stadium home. Unfortunately the SC hasn't stopped clubs from financial disaster in the SL era but i'm sure it stopped many more from spending way beyond their means.

So back to the question of has the SC worked - to some extent i'd say yes it has. However where it is now failing IMO, is that it hasn't kept up with events outside the sport in the UK. It hasn't kept pace with the cost of living & salaries and it definately hasn't kept up with other sports and competitors like the NRL and Union.

I do think there's still a place for the SC in RL in the UK bit it definately needs a full review and updating.

This tedious re writing of history… Wigan did not bankrupt themselves, they had debts far far below the level that Saints have shrugged off. Saints have benefited from an infinitely rich board, which you might consider their birthright, but without it you’d be playing in a condemned dump. Wigan made money year after year in our brief era of dominance, and invested in the best players they could afford. Which is what sport and life is like.

That it so upsets you after 25 years of Saints domination is pathetic. Wigan’s wins were genuine wins, hard won through investment and ambition, and dragged the whole game up to a professional level. We wouldn’t have been in a position to launch super league at all without the game’s profile having been so high during our glory years. 

If your point is that you so dislike Wigan you consider their 8 years of dominance is different - and worse - than Saints’ 25 year domination, then just write that. From your perspective, it’s a perfectly valid stance, but you don’t need to distort reality to fit it. Indeed, our era was already over by the time SL came round. Finally, if you consider success to be stopping Wigan dominating, then that’s fine, but 30 trophies and many more to come show we replaced one short lived dynasty with an eternal empire. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Exiled Wiganer

[Exiled Wiganer]

2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

So with that would you extend the number's of overseas player's at each club?

It is quite obvious that there is not enough home grown talent to spread about hence all SL teams already using the full quota of the allowed 7 non feds.

It is arguable that we don’t have enough home grown talent, but I don’t see the answer as being more overseas players. The answer is hard work, development officers and putting the onus on improving participation levels. The hard work - that places like Leigh and Wigan do week in, and week out. The development officers that should be in the south east, and the north east, and every area in the traditional heartlands that has ever had a club. It’s a hard road, and a long road, but it’s the only way forward for our game. If only we had another David Oxley…

[Just Browny]

Saints' dominance doesn't prove anything about the success or failure of the cap. We do have a largely competitive league; in the first decade of SL 50-80 point thrashings were far more common than they are now.

I think the idea that 'Saints have won the league four times a row and therefore the only answer is to let Derek Beaumont or Marwan Koukash flash their cash' is entirely the wrong conclusion. That is all those who say 'ditch the cap' are suggesting: none of our clubs are sitting on a war chest of cash they have earned but aren't allowed to spend.

That said the implementation of the cap hasn't been accompanied by an ambitious plan to ensure the cap grows at a rate which keeps our game competitive wage-wise and indeed makes the case stronger. It is held at bargain-basement rates and commercial revenue has stagnated. That's where the problem is.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Just Browny

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, BladeHearts said:

The salary cap has allowed St Helens to become Champions of the World and as far as I can tell professional club Rugby League seems to be in a far healthier place than professional club Rugby Union which is hurtling at express pace into financial meltdown. Whilst the Gallagher Premiership downsizes to 10, Super League has a raft of clubs capable of expanding the top flight to 14 clubs if not more.

 

Its far too small a sample size to draw firm conclusions but on first sight attendances seem to be on an upward curve this season as well

There is definitely something in this. 

On the face of it, it is absolutely staggering that St Helens (c£2.5m spend) could even compete with Penrith and St George (c£6.8m spend) never mind go over to their backyard and beat them.

I do think it is important to understand what the cap is for. I think there are two main things - sustainability, where i think it has been a success. There are natural downsides to that though in terms of us losing players and missing out on top talent from across the world.

In terms of spreading the success, there is an argument it has been less successful, but I'm not sure that is down to the Salary Cap on a basic level, it is possibly due to the design and some of the concessions which basically give a couple of clubs advantages that are almost impossible to overtake, and the headline cash cap is too low to over-compensate. The cap incentives for player development is well intended, but imho the unintended consequences of it are problematic for competition. Nobody has ever been able to articulate how any club can overtake Saints, Wigan and Leeds with their legacy youth pathways. I'd argue it's impossible to overtake decades worth of benefits that have built up.

Sure, people will be dismissive and just pat themselves on the back as them trying harder, but that simply isn't true.

[Dave T]

St Helens are clearly the strongest club around at the moment, however the last decade is quite interesting.

LLS - a good measure of success. Saints have won 4 LLS. We have had 7 different winners in the last 10 years. That's more than the previous 10 years.

Grand Finals. Saints have won 5, We've had 3 different winners. It's disappointing that more of those LLS winners didn't manage to win the GF (including my own team!) - but they contributed to excellent finals in many cases.

Challenge Cup - Saints have won 1. We've had 6 different winners.

 

So overall Saints have clearly been very successful, and for a sustained period of time, but we do have a decent level of variety across British RL. We don't need to be quite so negative based on the fact Saints are on a great run right now.

[Damien]

The salary cap has certainly failed but for me its nothing to do with Saints winning 4 times in a row. I'm not really in favour anyway of the concept of a salary cap being to dismantle champion teams. Teams should not be punished for success and it is up to others to raise their game.

It has failed because as it has dumbed down standards with less star players and big names. SL has suffered as a result and this has been shown in recent years with declining attendances and declining TV deals. The salary cap has created a cartel of top clubs with built in advantages that are almost impossible for any aspiring club to overcome. It ensures that the top clubs, who have always signed all of the best youngsters, are rewarded through salary cap exemptions and cannot be overtaken or outspent. These clubs can dominate the league without having to really battle each other financially and know that no one can really rock this boat. All it does is ensure a self perpetuating cycle.

Allied to this less well off clubs also don't mind it as it allows them to compete at the top table while at the same time protecting them and ensuring any upstart from the Championship can't usurp them. It helps protect their position in SL.

As we have seen the salary cap has also done nothing to stop clubs going bust. The argument it does is just another illusion. There should be more than one way to develop a sports club and at the moment the current RL salary cap model forces clubs into a very narrow model that suits those at the top. It needs drastic reform.