Super League Wages

[gingerjon]

31 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

I don’t have the answers but it just absolutely grates me the disparity in income earned between the top soccer players and the 99% of the population they are representing when they pull a jersey on. All for kicking a ball. 

They're the ones generating the value in the product. Absolutely right that they earn a substantial chunk of that.

[Derwent]

16 minutes ago, sam4731 said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. When you have clubs that are reliant on central funding for their survival, you will have this type of disparity. Until you have a salary cap that everyone can spend to, the whole thing becomes redundant.

But the cap is a formula not a restriction on spend. Which is why Wigan can legitimately spend £1m more than the cap. You could drop the cap to £1m and Wigan would still be able to outspend some other clubs by the same ratio. Player development is key - I don’t know if he is but if Harry Smith, for example, is their nominated club-trained marquee player then he counts for just £50k on the cap. They could pay him say £200k a year without any impact on the cap. Unless you make the cap an absolute spend figure and remove all of the dispensations (marquee players, home grown, fed trained etc) then some clubs will always be able to outspend others, that’s just a fact of life.

[sam4731]

3 minutes ago, Derwent said:

But the cap is a formula not a restriction on spend. Which is why Wigan can legitimately spend £1m more than the cap. You could drop the cap to £1m and Wigan would still be able to outspend some other clubs by the same ratio. Player development is key - I don’t know if he is but if Harry Smith, for example, is their nominated club-trained marquee player then he counts for just £50k on the cap. They could pay him say £200k a year without any impact on the cap. Unless you make the cap an absolute spend figure and remove all of the dispensations (marquee players, home grown, fed trained etc) then some clubs will always be able to outspend others, that’s just a fact of life.

I'm not saying that I disagree with dispensations if there is a cap but there are clubs that are receiving CF that is being used to prop up a club rather than fostering it to thrive.

[Harry Stottle]

42 minutes ago, meast said:

Is it confirmed or is it just an estimate?

It says estimate

 https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/sky-sports-publish-salary-spend-of-all-super-league-teams-salford-second-lowest-wigan-highest

[Harry Stottle]

26 minutes ago, Derwent said:

Unless you make the cap an absolute spend figure and remove all of the dispensations (marquee players, home grown, fed trained etc) then some clubs will always be able to outspend others, that’s just a fact of life.

It is designed to do precisely as such.

What we don't know and considering this published spend is on player wages alone, I wonder taking in all of the other employees remuneration from tea lady to coach to Cheif Exec what the actual overall wage bill would be? Then the disparity of say Wigan v Salford would be massive.

[lucky 7]

15 hours ago, Futtocks said:

If you have a conveyor belt of home-grown talent and three carefully-chosen marquee players, plus a few other strategic signings where needed, you can go beyond the salary cap by quite a distance.

If you're not developing young talent, have signed a couple of cranky NRL crocks and decided to give a "gifted but difficult" player his umpteenth last chance, you can spend almost as much for far less return.

The lesson is here is to develop your own players.

[Derwent]

9 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

It is designed to do precisely as such.

What we don't know and considering this published spend is on player wages alone, I wonder taking in all of the other employees remuneration from tea lady to coach to Cheif Exec what the actual overall wage bill would be? Then the disparity of say Wigan v Salford would be massive.

Yes but that’s like saying Man Utd would have a huge disparity with Brentford. It’s just a by-product of being a bigger, more commercially successful organisation.

The cap does exactly what it’s meant to do. There is a misconception that it’s meant to equalise teams and make them all the same standard. Its real aim is to stop clubs spending what they can’t afford while allowing flexibility for those that can. In that sense it is successful. It might be frustrating for fans of clubs who can’t match the spending of others, but the clear message there is develop your own players, grow your commercial income and don’t just be a RL team, be a successful business. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

A few things strike me about this: 

- 3m is around 6m AUSD which is not peanuts even when compared with the NRL or the Vichy caps (when considering they need twice as many fatties because they all only do one thing per position), so it’s a start. I would scrap it entirely, and focus on monitoring teams potentially going bust, but it needn’t hold us back if there are enough dispensations; 

- different countries’/region’s cost of living and tax rates would make a material difference: thus, London’s money will not go as far as Cas’ and the Cats have a significant advantage (as did Saints when offshore trusts and offshore “image rights” were all the rage and they unsurprisingly dominated the game); and 

- the player deserve every penny. 

[bobbruce]

15 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

A few things strike me about this: 

- 3m is around 6m AUSD which is not peanuts even when compared with the NRL or the Vichy caps (when considering they need twice as many fatties because they all only do one thing per position), so it’s a start. I would scrap it entirely, and focus on monitoring teams potentially going bust, but it needn’t hold us back if there are enough dispensations; 

- different countries’/region’s cost of living and tax rates would make a material difference: thus, London’s money will not go as far as Cas’ and the Cats have a significant advantage (as did Saints when offshore trusts and offshore “image rights” were all the rage and they unsurprisingly dominated the game); and 

- the player deserve every penny. 

Hopefully you have proof of this accusation you are making. 

[ATLANTISMAN]

44 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

Hopefully you have proof of this accusation you are making. 

In fairness bob everyone in the game knows it went on Hong Kong was the favourite place en-route back down under to pick up the cash.

I know one player who lived on 25K only for the year and picked up a whopping 200K in Hong Kong a few years ago

[M j M]

2 hours ago, sam4731 said:

I'm not saying that I disagree with dispensations if there is a cap but there are clubs that are receiving CF that is being used to prop up a club rather than fostering it to thrive.

Central funding is an income stream all the clubs earn through the tv deal. It's not some sort of charity payment. I therefore just don't agree with the idea that clubs are "propped up" by it any more than they're propped up by their attendance or sponsorship revenues.

[Wakefield Ram]

Only in RL could you bring in s salary cap and then make up ways to break it. Marquee players is just a nonsense. There aren't queues of sports lining up to take our players. 

[Damien]

2 hours ago, sam4731 said:

I'm not saying that I disagree with dispensations if there is a cap but there are clubs that are receiving CF that is being used to prop up a club rather than fostering it to thrive.

Central funding is TV income and is no different than the TV income that clubs get in any other sport. Every sport would be vastly different without it. Even NRL clubs get circa $16 million a year but no one says that is propping up clubs.

[Damien]

1 minute ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Only in RL could you bring in s salary cap and then make up ways to break it. Marquee players is just a nonsense. There aren't queues of sports lining up to take our players. 

Dispensations such as the marquee rule are to improve the competition and attract/keep star players. As a recent example Wigan would have lost Bevan French if it wasn't for the marquee rule and SL would be all the poorer for that.

[sam4731]

2 hours ago, M j M said:

Central funding is an income stream all the clubs earn through the tv deal. It's not some sort of charity payment. I therefore just don't agree with the idea that clubs are "propped up" by it any more than they're propped up by their attendance or sponsorship revenues.

 

2 hours ago, Damien said:

Central funding is TV income and is no different than the TV income that clubs get in any other sport. Every sport would be vastly different without it. Even NRL clubs get circa $16 million a year but no one says that is propping up clubs.

So what you're saying is that every club in SL is 12th the reason for the broadcasting revenue? Some clubs are taking money that they aren't really earning and not doing anything to further themselves or the competition.

[M j M]

31 minutes ago, sam4731 said:

 

So what you're saying is that every club in SL is 12th the reason for the broadcasting revenue? Some clubs are taking money that they aren't really earning and not doing anything to further themselves or the competition.

Yes, the league wouldn't work if Leeds and Wigan didn't have other teams to play. So yes all the teams earn the revenue.

[sam4731]

7 minutes ago, M j M said:

Yes, the league wouldn't work if Leeds and Wigan didn't have other teams to play. So yes all the teams earn the revenue.

OK so if I started up a team today, I would be valid in entering it into SL as long as I'd be willing to play Wigan and Leeds?

[glossop saint]

19 minutes ago, sam4731 said:

OK so if I started up a team today, I would be valid in entering it into SL as long as I'd be willing to play Wigan and Leeds?

If you impressed the RFL enough to get a place in League 1 (or bought a place off a failed team), then formerly either won promotion to SL or now managed to get the IMG score to get into SL, then yes.

[N2022]

6 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

I don’t have the answers but it just absolutely grates me the disparity in income earned between the top soccer players and the 99% of the population they are representing when they pull a jersey on. All for kicking a ball. 

It does grate, in a way that rugby and cricket salaries don't, because it just seems immoral that someone can earn in a week what a nurse might earn in a decade. 

[M j M]

37 minutes ago, sam4731 said:

OK so if I started up a team today, I would be valid in entering it into SL as long as I'd be willing to play Wigan and Leeds?

Well you'd have to play all the other teams, that's how a league works. But if just the biggest rating teams decided to play because they feel they generate most of the tv income then the whole thing would fall apart quite quickly.

[newbe]

6 hours ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

My guess is that the Dragons would actually be the highest if one counted players on Elite 1 contracts (Remember its the same club) 

If Catalans didn't have to pay for teams to come over it would be much lower.

[bobbruce]

2 minutes ago, newbe said:

If Catalans didn't have to pay for teams to come over it would be much lower.

That won’t count towards their cap. 

[gingerjon]

37 minutes ago, N2022 said:

It does grate, in a way that rugby and cricket salaries don't, because it just seems immoral that someone can earn in a week what a nurse might earn in a decade. 

Mitchell Starc will be paid £2.4m to play in the IPL, which runs for about 10 weeks. That's £240,000 per week.

[HawkMan]

47 minutes ago, N2022 said:

It does grate, in a way that rugby and cricket salaries don't, because it just seems immoral that someone can earn in a week what a nurse might earn in a decade. 

Money for nurses or firemen etc comes from government funds, except the government doesn't have its own money. It's ours, the taxpayers, unless the government borrows. So if nurses were paid say 1 million a year our taxes would sky rocket to pay for it.

Footballers or other top sports people are paid by private money from subscriptions to TV companies leading to advertising revenue for Sky et al,  or attendees at games. So it's the public that makes football or F1 popular leading to high revenues sloshing about. 

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, N2022 said:

It does grate, in a way that rugby and cricket salaries don't, because it just seems immoral that someone can earn in a week what a nurse might earn in a decade. 

It’s nice to know not everyone here is for a commercialised free for all  

In all seriousness though, my opinions on extreme salaries paid to professional sportspersons is ideological and belong on another thread.