I fear that in the coming months we will see momentum build for what may be the most disastrous move in rugby league history. Petero Civoniceva, one of the most modest and even keeled individuals I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, has unwittingly played a part.
By downplaying the comments of Jarryd Hayne in isolation he has, in essence, given tacit approval to speculation of a strike and increased rep player payments.
I doubt that it is his intention, but it will be seized upon as a point of support by those who wish to further their own agenda.
To be clear, all speculation of a salary cap increase raised by top level players doesn’t wash with Petero’s belief that the people that should be looked after are the lower paid player’s livelihood.
The most pertinent question is: without an increase in revenue, where does the increased payments to highly paid players come from?
The answer is the bottom rung of earners.
We can argue about Cretaceous, Jurassic or Triassic reptiles causing a poor revenue outcome half a decade ago, but the commercial reality is that we’ve got certain amount of money coming into the game and that is all we can distribute.
Arguing about if it should be more or less should have carbon tax applied for the waste of hot air.
Which raises the most obvious point: why even raise the prospect of a strike when you know your objectives can’t be achieved.
And how does the junior development pipeline survive this?
These young men are on $50k a year as the top percentile in their chosen field and have just forgone further education and career development to pursue their professional footballing dream.
These young men have neither the skills, nor the savings, nor the third party agreements to provide for themselves, or their families, during this period.
They will have three choices: move to the mundane working lives the rest of us live, change to a more lucrative code, or hope their families can support them.
So what Cameron Smith, Jarryd Hayne, Jonathon Thurston, and every other elite selfish player is essentially saying is, “I don’t care about this year’s pool of juniors and I care even less about the game in 5 years.”
Sadly, though, they will be the same ill informed, analysis light bleaters from the channel nine couch in 10 years who are oblivious to the role they played.
They’ll sit beside Gus and rave on about “the old days” throw up stats which are meaningless to the outcome of the game and move on.
But even worse still for the top players is that their actions have the down side of creating a fissure in the facade of united front for the NRL that is required for TV rights.
Having had the players hold both the NRL and TV networks hostage for the benefit of the elite is not a prospect that yields a great stable revenue stream.
Even if the strike is simply a big stick waved at the prosperity of the game the mere suggestion introduces an element of risk that the TV stations are well within their rights to price in and would be foolish not to.
It displays a fundamental ignorance of diplomacy and intelligence that has been the hallmark of the rugby league players association.
Sadly neither the players nor their “advisers”, and I use this term very lightly for a group that put Craig Wing into Indonesian golf courses and other players into the other Storm debacle, have the capacity to realise that their timing and demands actually hamper their own long term objectives.
The game would be better served with an Independent Commission for the players than the NRL. Maybe then we could stop the players cutting off their own noses.
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May 14th 2010 @ 5:51am
Vinay Verma said | May 14th 2010 @ 5:51am | Report comment
Mushi,you are right to highlight the unsustainable demands of elite players. It is also pertinent to draw attention to those on the lower rungs of the earning ladder.
We are now in, what Mike Coward, terms the “Age of Entitlement” Where elite players,across the codes and other high profile sports like cricket, feel they are somehow entitled to the last cent the game can afford. Are these sports people taking their lead from our business and politcal leaders? This is the age where “elite” leaders of failed companies like Lehman Bros and Goldman Sachs gave themselves bonuses even as the companies they ran went bust. This is an age where Rudd cuts the child care rebate even as he increases his own staff by 60.
Not all players in all sports are greedy but when a players’ association asks for more pay it has to be balanced with the question “Can the Game afford it” The EPL is touted as the best model but except for the top four or five clubs the rest struggle. The journeyman sportsperson on the lower rungs ekes out a living while a few prance around in Ferraris.
May 14th 2010 @ 9:37am
kovana said | May 14th 2010 @ 9:37am | Report comment
Then why do i hear from NRL supporters that the game has Millions pouring into it.. I even heard a bloke say that 1 Billion is being earned in revenue… is this true? WHere is all that money going?
May 14th 2010 @ 4:34pm
Mushi said | May 14th 2010 @ 4:34pm | Report comment
It does have millions that is why the players get paid collectively millions.
But billions I find that really hard to believe given the Broncos – the club with the likely the best revenue given their supporter base with almost 60% more people through the gate than the second best club and more than double the median club – had A$24.5m of football revenue (which took them A$23.9m of expenses to make..)
May 15th 2010 @ 11:39pm
Jason said | May 15th 2010 @ 11:39pm | Report comment
“WHere is all that money going?”
The Clubs and their employees. The proportion of revenue that ends up in the player’s hands is decreasing year on year.
May 14th 2010 @ 10:05am
Hansie said | May 14th 2010 @ 10:05am | Report comment
Surely an intelligent approach would be to only threaten a strike once a well thought through claim has been rejected after an exhaustive round of negotiations and all other means of settlement have been exhausted? What proposed pay deal has been rejected by the NRL to justify this strike threat? There is no pay claim on the table! The other aspect that annoys me is the players rounding on their own Players Association telling the world that the Association is weak. The Players Association is only weak because the players are apathetic about its existence and provide it with no support or muscle.
May 14th 2010 @ 12:12pm
Brett McKay said | May 14th 2010 @ 12:12pm | Report comment
Mushi, yesterday I used the example of the Australian Cricketers Association as the eg the RLPA should be aiming for the next collective bargaining agreement.
Excuse the cut and paste, but here’s what I said yesterday:
The players, in my opinion, are walking a very fine line currently between outright greed and “looking after the game”, and happily, the voice of reason is coming in the form of Petero Civoneceiva (and also, surprisingly, Willie Mason). Petero is the first player to come out and say that the lower teir players need to looked after just as much as the top teir, and it’s a point being missed in all this debate. These are the sorts of comments that will earn respect, not the “poor me” bleatings of someone who just signed a $2M contract. Hayne might take the time to realise that his massive contract has possibly played a part in his “mates” Meteo and Inu moving to New Zealand next year.
And I’m glad to see the players are starting to make demands for action of their own Association, rather than the game directly. If the RLPA had any clout, they’d be negotiating a proper CBA that spreads the money made by the game to ALL players, and particulalry those on minimum contracts. State cricketers across the country are better off because their CBA ensures a percentage of Cricket Australia revenue is used for player payments. It means that the minimum state contract has gone up significantly since it was introduced, and allows these players to be full-time cricketers, and not having to juggle training and part time work. In my mind, it’s the obvious example for the RLPA.
Now, while I think strike action is a dumb idea, and will do more harm to the players cause than they would hope, it was actually threatened strike action by Australian cricketers (particulalry the Test team) back in the late 90s/early 00s that got the valuable CBA established. If the RLPA had any semblance of power (or teeth), they should be pushing for a similar agreement with the NRL..
May 14th 2010 @ 3:26pm
Mushi said | May 14th 2010 @ 3:26pm | Report comment
Agreed that the players association needs to be a more effective and really the current and former players are the only people who can foot the blame for that.
But we’ve seen in the past strikes overseas that reduced the average payment because of the damage done.
The quoted figures are that the NRL players earn larger portion of their club’s revenues than in AFL. I’m not sure what cricket’s structure is like but it would be interesting to see what the revenue distribution is.
May 14th 2010 @ 3:44pm
Brett McKay said | May 14th 2010 @ 3:44pm | Report comment
Mushi, I don’t know what the number is, but the CBA dictates that a percentage of all CA revenue goes to the players, either directly through the CA central contracts (the “top 25″), or the state players in the form of grants to the States for that purpose. Since it’s been in operation, payments have gone up across the board, but most importantly, minimium state player and rookie contracts (and match payment) have gone up too. Guys playing for Australia in all three forms of the game now find themselves making $1M+ a year, which is a pretty nice earner in anyone’s language…
May 14th 2010 @ 4:42pm
mushi said | May 14th 2010 @ 4:42pm | Report comment
Brett I think you may be looking at apples and oranges here a bit.
The structure of cricket is very different the revenue is earned more by the Australian team (in terms of the rights and crowds) than the state teams where as the NRL gets it’s from the weekly first grade comp employing 400 top tier players across 16 teams.
There are several advantages for cricket players in the comaprission that are long winded to get into here.
But most importantly is the 400th best cricketer getting 50k plus allowances?
Also the percentage of revenue is pretty relevant if the NRL is reputedly paying out a larger portion of its revenue than the AFL then it is tough for players to do a like for like comparission and be justified.
May 14th 2010 @ 6:15pm
Brett McKay said | May 14th 2010 @ 6:15pm | Report comment
Certainly Mushi, the revenues and structures are different, and obviously CA only has to worry about 150 players give or take (roughly 25 x 6 states, which includes the CA contracted players).
But in terms of minimum salaries, match fees, etc, it seems a fair and equitable model. I noted this week that the deal for Gasnier this year included $4000 per game, but surely not all match fees would be that high. But it does beg the question why there isn’t some kind of standard match payment across the board..
May 15th 2010 @ 10:33pm
LT80 said | May 15th 2010 @ 10:33pm | Report comment
Would you be happy getting paid half as much as someone else to do the same job?
It’s not greed, it’s just human nature, you can’t fight it.
Neither you or I or any mug punter knows how much the clubs can afford to spend.
The cap is set too low. It’s main purpose is to limit player salaries. And the method it uses to do this pulls all clubs down to the level of the least-supported and most poorly managed. It needs to be raised or abolished.
May 17th 2010 @ 8:19am
mushi said | May 17th 2010 @ 8:19am | Report comment
One I’m not sure which job you are referring to for the NRL but everyone from the NBA to field hockey to netball is an elite level sports person that earns a salary which differs greatly from an NRL players salary.
Because in actuality you are comparing different jobs with broadly the same “qualifications”. They are all elite sportspeople across different codes and in different markets which earn different revenues and are hence not earning the same.
This also hardly limited to sport, lets take that same example across to another professional field.
You have a lawyer now our lawyer’s leaves university with all the other lawyers and their earnings are going to differ over time from other lawyers that took jobs at the same firm depending on what type of law they end up practicing (their team) and how much they can make from their firms clients (their ability).
Then if you start comparing across employers well the disparity rises, earnings are going to vary depending on if someone is at a top tier city law firm in New York or the local solicitor down the road in The Gap, or if they work in house counsel at a toll roads company or have used their qualifications to become an investment banker at Goldmans.
These jobs will all vary somewhat in both expectations of duties and salary but the most direct correlation to pay will be how much money per head their “firm” can make from their clients.
Furthermore we do have a guide as to what can be afforded by the broncos reports which are available to any mug punter with an internet connection.
The best revenue earning club had a pretty meagre operating profit suggesting there is hardly any windfall gain to be made by the not for profit clubs with smaller revenue bases.
This is why other clubs rely on their non-football operations to pay the bills, and we know this from the countless reports of the leagues clubs having to pay out grants to the footballing operations because football revenue doesn’t cover all the expenses.