Salary Cap

[Damien]

Its disappointing that the overall cap figure isnt being increased but the reduced caps for marquee club and federation trained players does provide an increase all the same in what clubs can spend. Its great to see the u21 exempt value rise too:

The finite cap for the Betfred Super League will stay at £2.1m for a fifth consecutive season, reflecting a recognition from the Boards and the clubs of the importance of financial sustainability, especially given the additional consideration of repaying the Sport Survival Fund loans.

However, the Board have listened to stakeholders including the RL Commercial Board and supported IMG, the sport’s long-term strategic partner, in their view that clubs should be permitted to invest when affordable.

Therefore, there will be a significant extension of the Marquee Player regulations which were introduced in 2015 – with a fresh emphasis on clubs being rewarded for developing outstanding British players, and on giving clubs additional spending power to keep those players in the Super League.

Clubs will now be permitted up to three Marquee Players (up from two), but only if at least one of them is Federation Trained.

Whereas previously all Marquee Players were counted as £150,000 on a club’s salary cap, with the exception of Club-Trained players who counted as £75,000, now Club-Trained Marquee Players will count as £50,000; Federation-Trained Marquee Players will count as £100,000; and Non-Federation Trained Marquee Players will remain valued at £150,000 in salary cap calculations.

Other changes see a substantial increase in the Player Welfare Allowance from £15,000 to £50,000 per annum reflecting the sport’s commitment to ensuring clubs are placing player welfare at the heart of decision making; and the value up to which Under-21 Players will be exempt from a club’s cap will rise from £25,000 to £30,000.

https://www.totalrl.com/salary-cap-changes-to-come-into-effect-for-2024-rugby-league-season-as-marquee-player-allowance-increases/

 

Edited June 3 by Damien

[Damien]

Its still all tinkering around the edges though to suit the big clubs and keep up the illusion of parity. It's far from the real reform that the salary cap needs.

[Gomersall]

They can’t keep the SC at the same rate year on year. It’s depreciating annually. Anyone have the figures to hand how much the average wage has gone down due to inflation? If this carries on then sooner or later the sport becomes unviable for anyone with the talent to turn pro at the top level. Other sports will benefit over RL.

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Damien said:

Its still all tinkering around the edges though to suit the big clubs and keep up the illusion of parity. It's far from the real reform that the salary cap needs.

I get that, though I think other than the increase in the overall amount and focus on what the cap is about, there's a lot of good stuff in there that reward what should be good for RL generally in this country.

[Damien]

6 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

They can’t keep the SC at the same rate year on year. It’s depreciating annually. Anyone have the figures to hand how much the average wage has gone down due to inflation? If this carries on then sooner or later the sport becomes unviable for anyone with the talent to turn pro at the top level. Other sports will benefit over RL.

We'd be at around £3.2 million now if the salary cap had risen with inflation since its inception. That would still allow us to still be pretty competitive with our main rivals in the NRL and RU. Faffing about with minor marquee cap changes does nothing to materially change things. It is an illusion to pretend the sport is doing something.

Edited June 3 by Damien

[Mark S]

What exactly is the welfare allowance? 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

We'd be at around £3.2 million now if the salary cap had risen with inflation since its inception. That would still allow us to still be pretty competitive with our main rivals in the NRL and RU. Faffing about with minor marquee cap changes does nothing to materially change things. It is an illusion to pretend the sport is doing something.

I don't disagree, but the real problem is that if revenues don't increase with inflation then your costs start to become a problem if you keep increasing them. 

What has happened in the RU top division this season should be a real warning for us. 

I do think there are some positives in this, and I think the £2.1m limit that gets mentioned is a red herring when exemptions are in place. We used to have £1.8m for a long time with no marquee, and now we have £2.1m with 3(?) in place, so in reality clubs could easily be spending a fair bit more than £2.1m.

But ultimately the root cause is we aren't driving revenues enough to grow the cap significantly. 

[GeordieSaint]

13 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I don't disagree, but the real problem is that if revenues don't increase with inflation then your costs start to become a problem if you keep increasing them. 

What has happened in the RU top division this season should be a real warning for us. 

I do think there are some positives in this, and I think the £2.1m limit that gets mentioned is a red herring when exemptions are in place. We used to have £1.8m for a long time with no marquee, and now we have £2.1m with 3(?) in place, so in reality clubs could easily be spending a fair bit more than £2.1m.

But ultimately the root cause is we aren't driving revenues enough to grow the cap significantly. 

I was going to say the same. Good post.

[Damien]

50 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I don't disagree, but the real problem is that if revenues don't increase with inflation then your costs start to become a problem if you keep increasing them. 

What has happened in the RU top division this season should be a real warning for us. 

I do think there are some positives in this, and I think the £2.1m limit that gets mentioned is a red herring when exemptions are in place. We used to have £1.8m for a long time with no marquee, and now we have £2.1m with 3(?) in place, so in reality clubs could easily be spending a fair bit more than £2.1m.

But ultimately the root cause is we aren't driving revenues enough to grow the cap significantly. 

The trouble is everything else has gone up with inflation. Back in 2000 the TV deal was worth £11.56m per year, it is now worth £26m per year. The previous deal was worth £40m per year. Any increase in TV revenue since 2000 has not led to any real increase in salary cap. That is a real issue. Tickets are more expensive and everything else about the game day experience is more expensive. Even the minimum wage has gone up from £3.60 to £9.18 for a 22 year old, for a barometer of how wages generally have increased in that time.

Clubs will always try to keep wages artificially low to pay less. Too much about the game in this country is happy to scrape by just doing the bare minimum thinking that fans will always watch. The salary cap in its current form is designed to allow clubs to do just that.

Edited June 3 by Damien

[Jughead]

The move to three marquee players suits maybe five clubs, it doesn’t register for the rest. 

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, Jughead said:

The move to three marquee players suits maybe five clubs, it doesn’t register for the rest. 

I expect the problem is that the rest also won't vote for a basic rise either. It suits them because it doesn't raise base level wages, only for the tip of the game. 

So I think this is a case of the bigger clubs only being able to get this through tbh. 

[Dave T]

24 minutes ago, Damien said:

The trouble is everything else has gone up with inflation. Back in 2000 the TV deal was worth £11.56m per year, it is now worth £26m per year. The previous deal was worth £40m per year. Any increase in TV revenue since 2000 has not led to any real increase in salary cap. That is a real issue. Tickets are more expensive and everything else about the game day experience is more expensive. Even the minimum wage has gone up from £3.60 to £9.18 for a 22 year old, for a barometer of how wages generally have increased in that time.

Clubs will always try to keep wages artificially low to pay less. Too much about the game in this country is happy to scrape by just doing the bare minimum thinking that fans will always watch. The salary cap in its current form is designed to allow clubs to do just that.

Like I say, I don't disagree, but ultimately we are as poor as ever. It's all relative. I absolutely agree that as tv deals increased we should have tracked that with the cap. The problem is that we didn't sort out fundamentals and capitalise on, well, anything really, and revenues haven't grown significantly outside of tv money. 

Look at our sponsor portfolio now, it's garbage. 

[Damien]

25 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I expect the problem is that the rest also won't vote for a basic rise either. It suits them because it doesn't raise base level wages, only for the tip of the game. 

So I think this is a case of the bigger clubs only being able to get this through tbh. 

This is the crux of it and it has led to the kind of stagnation we have had for years now. The salary cap in its current form suits the big clubs who don't really need to compete with with other financially and they can maintain the status quo. It also suits the rest for the reasons you cite and they can cling on in SL because they are in the club already and get more money than Championship clubs. It essentially allows every club to maintain their respective position in the pecking order as cheap as possible.

If the salary cap was genuinely about distributing talent the only measure it would need is that no club can have more than x amount of players earning over a certain amount, say 15 players earning over £70k as an example. That would spread talent and stop hoarding and wouldn't drive down wages. All without convoluted smoke and mirrors mechanisms. There is simply no need for a finite number to distribute talent and it certainly doesn't stop clubs going bust.

Edited June 3 by Damien

[Barry Badrinath]

I'm presuming this kicks in automatically for existing marquee contracts.

 

ie George Williams is now only costing warrington 100k cos he's fed trained.

[bobbruce]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

We'd be at around £3.2 million now if the salary cap had risen with inflation since its inception. That would still allow us to still be pretty competitive with our main rivals in the NRL and RU. Faffing about with minor marquee cap changes does nothing to materially change things. It is an illusion to pretend the sport is doing something.

If clubs wanted to with the new three marquees spots they could easily go past £3.2m in spending so I suppose it’s up to each individual club. 

[bobbruce]

I like the new rule it makes even  more sense for SL sides to make home grown players the marquee signing which has to be a good thing. 

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

If clubs wanted to with the new three marquees spots they could easily go past £3.2m in spending so I suppose it’s up to each individual club. 

That doesn't particularly raise the standard of SL across the board in my opinion, not when we have kids playing SL on 20k a year. Neither does such a competition attract real marquee players. I would much rather have a competition where £3.2 million is split 25 ways with a proper minimum wage rather than £2.1 million split 25 ways with a few players like George Williams getting a couple of hundred grand more.

For me the marquee player argument is a complete red herring in these debates. There is simply no need for it if we had a fair and equitable salary cap.

Edited June 3 by Damien

[bobbruce]

4 minutes ago, Damien said:

That doesn't particularly raise the standard of SL across the board in my opinion, not when we have kids playing SL on 20k a year. Neither does such a competition attract real marquee players. I would much rather have a competition where £3.2 million is split 25 ways with a proper minimum wage rather than £2.1 million split 25 ways with a few players like George Williams getting a couple of hundred grand more.

For me the marquee player argument is a complete red herring in these debates. There is simply no need for it if we had a fair and equitable salary cap.

I think the need is the disparity between what clubs can spend. The marquee rule is a sop the the bigger clubs to make sure they are still favourites to win the trophies. The problem is if you just set the cap to keep everyone spending equal I’d guess the cap would be about £1.3m. 

[Barry Badrinath]

52 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Like I say, I don't disagree, but ultimately we are as poor as ever. It's all relative. I absolutely agree that as tv deals increased we should have tracked that with the cap. The problem is that we didn't sort out fundamentals and capitalise on, well, anything really, and revenues haven't grown significantly outside of tv money. 

Look at our sponsor portfolio now, it's garbage. 

Talking about sponsors,  this isn't the dacia magic weekend any more is it?

[Dave T]

15 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

I think the need is the disparity between what clubs can spend. The marquee rule is a sop the the bigger clubs to make sure they are still favourites to win the trophies. The problem is if you just set the cap to keep everyone spending equal I’d guess the cap would be about £1.3m. 

I think it's ultimately a way of keeping base wages at the current level. We accept that we can't afford to spend more and any raise in the cap would see wages increase across the population. This way, you maybe pay another 12 players a bit more that you were at risk of losing to Oz. 

It's a calculated increase basically. 

[Dave T]

16 minutes ago, Barry Badrinath said:

Talking about sponsors,  this isn't the dacia magic weekend any more is it?

Correct. They moved on a year or so ago. Just like most other sponsors. 

[Barry Badrinath]

Just now, Dave T said:

Correct. They moved on a year or so ago. Just like most other sponsors. 

I only ask as I've been voting on the our league app today, its offering discounts on the dacia magic weekend tickets as rewards for voting.

[Damien]

21 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

I think the need is the disparity between what clubs can spend. The marquee rule is a sop the the bigger clubs to make sure they are still favourites to win the trophies. The problem is if you just set the cap to keep everyone spending equal I’d guess the cap would be about £1.3m. 

I completely agree its a sop to the big clubs, I couldnt write a salary cap rule that suits my club better.

There is no need for a finite limit to keep teams equal. There are far better ways to do that if that was the real purpose. Its not.

[LeeF]

11 minutes ago, Barry Badrinath said:

I only ask as I've been voting on the our league app today, its offering discounts on the dacia magic weekend tickets as rewards for voting.

And that sums up the administration of the game

[The Future is League]

4 hours ago, Gomersall said:

They can’t keep the SC at the same rate year on year. It’s depreciating annually. Anyone have the figures to hand how much the average wage has gone down due to inflation? If this carries on then sooner or later the sport becomes unviable for anyone with the talent to turn pro at the top level. Other sports will benefit over RL.

With inflation running at around 8% the salary cap is retracting in real terms, unless the salary cap rises by 8% and that's not going to happen