The idiocy of punishing excellence – the NRL is starting to twig…
Roar Guru By Millster, 16 Sep 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
114 Have your say
A number of you will have read my views over the last year or so on those aspects of all professional codes that are implemented to artificially level out a competition – such as drafts and salary caps – and that therefore reward mediocrity and prevent clubs from enjoying and consolidating the fruits of their success.
Rather than launch another big comment of my own on this, I just want to tip my hat to a Fox Sports article which has confronted this issue in the context of this year’s NRL finals series. Even braver as this media outlet is constructively criticising a code that it owns.
The final paragraphs are gold – as follows:
“Underlying every grievance is a sense of injustice. Like the salary cap, the top eight doesn’t provide enough safeguards to defend what the best teams have earned. The intention, in both cases, is the opposite: tear them down to appease the lowest common denominator and create a veneer of parity.
So where is the incentive to excel?”
Please enjoy the full story at this link:
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,24352381-23214,00.html
Recommend this story.
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September 17th 2008 @ 10:50am
The Link said | September 17th 2008 @ 10:50am | Report comment
True Tah, almost as much of a beat up as “State of the Union”? Here I was thinking that was a US political term, but I digress.
Seriously you must be joking re Origin. SOO is not a gimick, nor contrived, nor a media beat up. Have you been in QLD during Origin time?
It is a genuine, intense, passionate, historic rivalry, that produces amazing games of Rugby Football, matched only in skill and toughness in this country for both codes by Aus / NZ in Rugby Union.
SOO is the best thing League has going for it, the fans know it, the clubs knnow it, the NRL knows it, how you guys can twist it into it being some contrived waste of time is bordering on insanity.
Millster, I prefer to see teams win by something other than the size of the owners chequebook, that’s why salary caps work.
September 17th 2008 @ 10:51am
oikee said | September 17th 2008 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Agrre with you about soo killing the international game, but what would you do if you had a product as good as origin, Give me some answers on that, would you take your best product, that is growing not only hear with audiences, but also around the world with audiences , what would you do, kill it off. ? I would like a sensible answer to that.
Also millster, i get your drift but what would you rather see, a team that wins year in year out or a different team each year, now this cap issue is not that old, i dont know about other sports but to me it seems the fairest we have, how do any of us know it wont be addopted to other games around the world in future, then league looks stupid for getting rid of it, dammed if you do, dammed if you dont to me.
Also the cap rises with the amount of money available, so eventually the cap might dissapear with time?
September 17th 2008 @ 11:08am
True Tah said | September 17th 2008 @ 11:08am | Report comment
The Link,
the fact the SOO is the best thing RL has going for it is perhaps the most telling thing of all, the pinnacle of the game is a contest between two states.
If a 3 game comp is the best thing league has going for it, then the game has real issues. The clubs know about it when their SOO players are unable to play during rounds.
Added to this, Qld have a real habit of trying to bend the rules…I guess it makes sense since SOO was born due to Queenslanders getting sick of losing all the time and having a real chip on their shoulder. Adrian Lam, a PNG rep, playing for Qld, ditto for Lote Tuqiri and Fiji. Imagine if NSW had been so keen to push the letter, we could have had Morley and SBW in the same paddock in the sky blue, bet you lot would have been s******g bricks.
Hell Greg Inglis, born and bred NSWer, ends up in Maroon colours, how the hell did that happen? By virtue of him playing a game for Brisbane Norths. Is that manufactured of what? Thats almost as bad as the qualifying criteria for the RLWC!!!
September 17th 2008 @ 11:14am
Millster said | September 17th 2008 @ 11:14am | Report comment
To Oikee and The Link – it is not anywhere near my definition of fairness to strip teams that have found success of all sorts of privileges, and of their own right to consolidate thier success. And viewed another way, how empty and hollow is an NRL (or AFL) premiership to a fan with their eyes open enough to realise that they have only won due to concessions and hand-outs, in the form of these “levelling devices” built into the code, a couple of years earlier? “Oh congratulation, you’ve won. Lets forget the fact that you got the best 5 blokes in the draft 2 years ago, or that the teams above you have had their winning combinations of player rosters destroyed due to salary cap squeeze. Well done little team, well done” NOT
Chequebook competition is at least real competition as if some other rich bastard doesn’t like team X winning always, they can invest in team Y and up the game. Anyway the basic point is that what looks fair on the surface most often isn’t fair. Like affirmative action, you do it because you hate discrimination, but all you’re doing is discriminating yourself – its just that its palatable to most people who don’t think because for once youre discriminating against the stronger not the weaker. Well I see through that and think its horse shit.
PS: I’m for SOO. Good comp, good tradition, go the Maroons (strange coming from a Sydneysider, but a legacy of growing up in Perth where you ALWAYS got for the small state over the big, nasty VIC or NSW). But I agree there needs to be a break in the regular season to accomodate it. Also bugger this 3 game shit. One home, one away. And if it ends up one all then the team who held the trophy retains it just like cricket series.
September 17th 2008 @ 11:27am
The Link said | September 17th 2008 @ 11:27am | Report comment
TT – the telling thing is a contest between two states produces better football than 99% of International Rugby matches. Why else is JON so keen to get the ELV’s up?
The rules re Inglis are simple, its where he played his first game of senior football. Answer – QLD.
For all the talk of expanding the length of the Super Rugby season (and geographically to Japan and god knows where else) the elephant in the room is club v country. If you think SOO has an impact on NRL, wait till the Super Rugby and International Seasons overlap.
September 17th 2008 @ 11:33am
True Tah said | September 17th 2008 @ 11:33am | Report comment
Millster further to your point.
A big chequebook is the outcome of continued success, its not the other way around.
If a successful club is able to gather the attention of a multimillionaire businessmen then why should it suffer?
I know in French rugby there is no salary cap…however, to be in the Top 14, you need to prove that you have the finances to ensure you can keep going for the year and ensure that you can pay all your players, Albi got relegated last year because of financial irregularities. Dan Carter’s move to Perpignan is in some doubt because the FFR is checking the finances of the club.
Maybe the NRL needs to move down this route, the players will ultimately get paid what the market permits them…there is no point in releasing the salary cap, player X get promised $1m a season, only for the club to go broke halfway through the season – look at Matt Giteau and the Force with their gripes with Firepower.
September 17th 2008 @ 11:35am
The Link said | September 17th 2008 @ 11:35am | Report comment
Millster – I would argue that i’d prefer my team to win given a set budget (i.e. cap) to spend on players than our ability to buy players. The AFL and American Sports seem to agree.
September 17th 2008 @ 11:44am
Redb said | September 17th 2008 @ 11:44am | Report comment
Millster,
What makes you think a salary cap system as opposed to a free for all money buys the best players is any less contrived! If a rich club can afford the best talent surely they are merely just buying the premiership.
At least in a salary cap and draft environment, the club has to work hard to maximise its existing player base, coaching ability and football dept on a relatively more efen playing field. The culture of a club and its supporterd can influence its success, as a supporter I’m much happier knowing the culture of my club had an influence not just the bigger cheque book.
Redb
September 17th 2008 @ 12:01pm
Millster said | September 17th 2008 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
RedB – though perhaps a bit philosophical the difference is profound. A salary cap is a limitation, a regulation. So it reduces the options available to clubs and their owners and managers. A laissez-faire approach is exactly that. It allows for the free will of individuals to participate in the game in whatever way they see fit. Remember too that there is not a limit to the number of clubs that multi-millionaires can buy. In the EPL, up to last year, the big money was behind MU, Chelski, and to a lesser degree Arsenal and Liverpool. Now we see Man City getting the same sort of financial support and all of a sudden the ‘top end of town’ game has expanded from 4 clubs to 5. Next year it will be 6, the year after 7… and even at the other end, reality rules. If the Wigans and West Broms have not made themselves an attractive proposition for someone to back then that’s life. They don’t deserve some sort of leg up just for being shite.
The Link – note a common theme though. The big US sports that have salary caps are essentially domestic sports with a closed club franchise / license system. The top level of the sport in Gridiron, Baseball and Basketball is the club competition – just like in AFL and NRL. So apart from the financial side of things these codes HAVE to manufacture the excitement, the competition, within their own little system. Its an absolute life or death thing for them that the comp is levelled even at the cost of any semblence of justice or darwinian reality. Fans simply have no-where else to go within those codes if they become disenchanted by their local franchise doing nothing season after season. It is EXACTLY how I would run it if I was managing one of those codes. Contrived and manufactured excitement to keep a veneer of competitiveness, even if its at the cost of real justice and the overall standard of the game.
September 17th 2008 @ 12:01pm
Michael C said | September 17th 2008 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
Quick point –
Phil asked at the outset – “how bad would it be if we didn’t have the AFL to compare it to? ”
Simple answer is to remember that the AFL started their final 8 adventure using the McIntyre system – - and it soon became apparent that it wasn’t quite right. So – it was changed – - without reference to a ‘parallel’ system.
Noting that the NRL had a top 10 from 20 in ’98 and then the top 8 from 17 in ’99.
So – - I reckon, left to themselves, the NRL folk might ALREADY have changed………..but……….something is stopping them falling into line with the AFL.
The AFL changed for season 2000………………and, much as it pains me to remember, that saw 4th placed North Melbourne come up against the dominant Essendon in week 1………..the result…….198 to 73, we were clobbered………….at that point, I wasn’t too fussed that suddenly finishing 4th saw you play the best opposition available and struggle to come up the next week (as it was, we did Hawthorn by 10 pts but got done by the Dees in the prelim by 50).
btw – the Fox article made that fine old ‘revenue raising’ comment………….I still think that’s a little unfair………….in a P&R structure perhaps fair – - but for a single division of 16, a final 5 would kill off interest way too soon – - and after all, a footy season is very much for the fans – - and sometimes our reward is but one finals appearance in 20 years (likewise the players – just ask Bobby Skilton).