I’d rather die on my feet, than live on my knees – Emiliano Zapata Salazar.
I grew up thinking this sentiment was first espoused by Peter Garrett out front of Midnight Oil. Turns out that it is actually uttered by a Mexican revolutionary from the early 20th century, who did – as it turns out – die on his feet.
A number of the struggling NRL clubs might also like to follow Zapata’s example and choose to go all out for success or die trying.
It is time that the NRL rid the 16 clubs of the shackles of the salary cap and allowed the market to decide – just as happens in the real world – which teams prosper and which teams disappear.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want my team to cease to exist. The idea that one day I might have that faraway hollow stare that North Sydney Bears fans feature so well is horrifying to me.
However, I’d prefer a competition that is genuinely decided by how well each club is run, as opposed to the current situation where the supporters of the ‘have’ clubs lecture the fans of the ‘have not’ teams that it is their poor management solely to blame for their woes. These smug opiners are possessed of a certainty that the chicken preceded the egg.
Under the current model there are two things that stand in the way of the weaker clubs going out backwards. The first is the broadcast deal.
The NRL has guaranteed their broadcast partners eight games most rounds, so sixteen teams are required to fulfil that promise. The lesser clubs role is essentially to make up numbers, to ensure the details of the broadcast deal are met. Like caged chickens being forced fed in pens, they do put out a product – but is it great quality?
The second thing is the salary cap. The NRL’s own logic for having a salary cap is as follows:
“It assists in “spreading the playing talent” so that a few better resourced clubs cannot simply out-bid other clubs for all of the best players. If a few clubs are able to spend unlimited funds it will reduce the attraction of games to fans, sponsors and media partners due to an uneven competition. Allowing clubs to spend an unlimited amount on players would drive some clubs out of the competition as they would struggle to match the prices wealthy clubs could afford to pay.”
There are a number of problems with this logic.
Firstly, spreading the playing talent by this means isn’t always fair. Take the Bulldogs 2002 and Melbourne Storm 2010. Both sides were massively penalised for breaching the salary cap. But take a close look at their sides.
The great majority of the players from those teams were developed by those clubs from juniors. Sure, there are the likes of Clint Newton, Michael Crocker, Darrell Trindall and Brett Finch among them.
But the likes of Willie Mason, Steve Price, Braith Anasta, Hazem El Masri, Cam Smith, Greg Inglis, Billy Slater, Israel Folau, Cooper Cronk, Ryan Hoffman, Luke Patten and Roy Asotasi were not stars before they were developed by those clubs.
Yet the salary cap made no concessions for their successful development, it just penalised them.
(Digital Image Grant Trouville © nrlphotos.com)
That’s not spreading talent. That’s compulsory acquisition in my opinion. Darryl Kerrigan didn’t wear it in The Castle and clubs shouldn’t have to wear it either in return for their good work.
Secondly, the use of unlimited funds reduces the attraction mostly only to the broadcasters, as some of the 16 clubs will inevitably fold. However, the market will find its price all by itself. That’s how capitalism works.
This isn’t a case of each club trying to kill all of the others. The NRL is not akin to the movie Highlander. There can’t only be one. Who would they play?
However, the current situation simply keeps many clubs on life support for the purpose of being part of a 16-team product for broadcasters, rather than allowing the market to sort itself out naturally into a sustainable and truly competitive league. A sixteen-team league is an artificial construct.
Right now there are great debates about third party agreements making an un-level playing field. This centres on the logic that you can’t stop a player making money from their profile. Fair enough too.
However, then we add that these agreements can’t be guaranteed or organised by clubs, or use NRL or club logos. Why not? Surely the deals would be more plentiful and worth more if these artificial barriers weren’t there?
As we don’t know the number or value of third party agreements at each club any discussion of them is purely speculative. Yet allegations of cheating and imbalance abound in regard to them and it damages the integrity of the game.
The easy way to wipe out the issue is to allow carte blanche. Once again, the market will sort itself out.
To stop the clubs with the best business networks just outbidding all other comers and create super clubs we could allow the clubs to use their own funds to compete. We currently don’t allow the clubs to use their own resources to pay players past $9.4 million a year.
The Panthers club is one of the biggest and wealthiest in the country. However, they aren’t able to use their considerable funds to attract and retain players beyond the level of the artificial salary cap.
Why on earth not? They are in no danger of going broke.
(AAP Image/Craig Golding)
Some clubs, however, will be in danger of going broke if the artificial construct of the salary cap is removed. They cling to some vague hope that a few stars will rise from their ranks and that a talented coach will be able to get the meat and potatoes that surround them into good enough shape to jag a premiership.
Or maybe they’ll snare a Supercoach who’ll bring with him players, sponsors and success.
But for the most part it is just vague hope. Their star players will probably be poached. Their coaches sacked again and again. Their management blamed for being useless. They’ll live on their knees.
However, if the salary cap is removed they might just achieve great and sustainable success – at the risk of going out backwards.
I’d rather die on my feet.
It’s time to get rid of the salary cap.
BeastieBoy
Guest
The cap must stay.The game and the players need certainty. We don't need clubs going broke, not playing players. Families in trouble.supporters, sponsors and media rights upset. We also don't need promotion and relegation. However we do need a method to relocate at least 2 teams that management decide from Sydney.one would be the Roosters.
Adam Bagnall
Roar Guru
As frustrating as the cap is at times, with clubs developing local juniors only to see them squeezed out or players becoming too expensive once they start playing rep footy, it ensures one of the most even domestic competitions in the world. Look at the EPL where I think only 5 clubs have won the title over the last 25 years or so, whereas in the NRL we've had a different winner each year stretching back to 1994, with the star-studded Broncos of 1992-93 the last team to go back to back. No salary cap and you would have cashed up clubs like the Roosters and Broncos winning year in, year out, while lesser clubs would fold. The salary cp gives every team a fair chance to win each year and keeps interest high all season
Pomoz
Roar Rookie
This is a great discussion. Well done Tim. No splinters, just get off the fence and make a call. For all of those who want salary caps and no TPA's, I say this: What gives you the right to restrict how much the players are paid? Players are forced to earn less than they could because of a "Big Brother" need to keep everybody the same and stop the poorly run clubs from going broke.Imagine if your boss said we are imposing a salary cap, you can't earn more than $X, regardless of what the market does or how much extra training you do or how much extra profit the company makes. If clubs go broke, new ones will form. All this pseudo communism has done is restrict the ability of the players to earn more and to restrict league's share of sponsorship dollars. Will a handful of clubs dominate? Possibly, but that is the case now. Try watching Canberra or the Tigers on TV. Clubs already dominate the TV landscape and TPA's. Removing the salary cap will help weed out the badly run, poorly supported clubs.
Geoff from Bruce Stadium
Guest
You have my full support on this one Tim. From what I've read about Sia he is a wonderful man and when I was at the game he appeared to be trying to take Slater out at chest level but Slater slipped and fell into Sia's tackle copping it in the jaw. All the abuse and vitriole Sia copped subsequently was totall uncalled for and a massive over reaction by people ignorant of the man's character. After the comment by Dean above I'm still not convinced that you really want to remove the salary cap and are just being provocative out of frustration at the NRL's unwillingness to do anything about TPAs. Your solution appears to be scrap the cap and allow league clubs to pour all their profits into buying players but doesn't this assume they will behave this way. And I'm not sure the leagues clubs are making massive profits. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph in March last year only the Broncos and the Cowboys made profits in 2016 and all clubs collective lost $53.4 million. This is hardly a recipe for your model to scrap the cap and finance recruitment through the profoits of league clubs. And I agree with Scott that the problem is TPAs (not the cap) that need to be reigned in or at least made competely transparent. Under current rules, there is no limit on third-party payments from non-team sponsors to players as long as they are registered and organised independently from the club. Surely there needs to be a cap on TPAs. We need two caps not none.
Tim Gore
Expert
Which eight teams?
Tim Gore
Expert
NOIP, this excellent input requires a full article. Very good food for action. I knew nothing of these issues and they need to see the proper light of day IMO. So no pressure, but get writing. In a previous life I was a senior admin at a junior soccer club. Close friends moved back to Sydney and I saw how the only way all three of their kids could play at the same location was because of intra club visits. However, you've got to have clubs that are matched well for teams. So yeah, I get the Sydney transport issue.
BA Sports
Guest
Club, administrators do not come in under the cap. Clubs could be spending whatever they want now to get the best CEO's and management teams to run their clubs more efficiently and profitably. They choose not to - or can't afford to. 'No salary cap' wouldn't change that - in fact if anything, clubs would be putting all their money into rosters and would have less resources to pay for good quality administration teams - The thing the NRL desperately needs before it talks about expansion or giving clubs more power etc..
no one in particular
Roar Guru
NRL clubs should be running the NRL team and support the feeder club. That's it. Grassroots and junior development are two very different things, yet they are put under the same umbrella. The NRL should be taking over the entire junior system in the country. At present resources are not allocated evenly or fairly. I'm not just talking about between clubs, but kids in different areas. Clubs are only interested in IDD (Identification, Development, Deployment) of the players they see having an NRL future. That means nothing to the kids playing under 8's, or the kid playing with mates in under 15's or the guy playing for the love of it in A Grade. At present, a 15yo kid is signed by a club and his future is determined on the development skills of those at the club, the oppurtunities that arise and the time he is given. I have seen kids have their future killed by a club pressuring 16yo and 17yo to return from injury early because they have a financial interest in them. Growing bodies heal at different rates. Half backs aren't being developed because they are so talented and such a valuable future resource clubs put them on a shelf as teenagers. These kids should be developed by having a wide range of coaching available to them - one weekend every six at a camp with a bunch of other young halves under the guidance of quality coaching, next week young forwards, etc. One kid comes through because of the clubs development, another kid, probably more talented, gets lost because of the poor development at his club. The game losses that player. A kid from Bathurst shouldn't have to leave his family as a 15yo to be given the same chance as a 15yo from Hurstville Playing in junior catchments make no sense. A friend of mines kids play for Dural in the North Sydney comp. On a Saturday morning one could be playing in North Sydney, the other at Asquith. Parents really love that! Another mate has kids in the Hills District, and they very rarely have away games outside the Hills/Kellyville region. Grassroots shouldn't work like that. Cap concessions would be no incentive. Club A can do zero junior development and sign players eligible for their final year of SG Ball and be classed as a club junior. They would get concessions for that player. A "poaching fee" was considered in the players CBA signed last year, but the players rejected it. This fee was to be paid to the club that developed the player by the club that poached him. This fee was to be 10% of the contracts value, with a maximum of $100k a season. So the Roosters sign James Tedesco for, lets say, $800k a season. On top of paying him that, the Roosters pay the Tigers $80k per season. The players rejected this. The NRL can only do so much with cap concessions, they need both the clubs and players to agree to it, a near impossible task. The ARLC is tasked with the welfare of the game as a whole. Let them do that. Let NRL clubs look after NRL teams
Big Daddy
Guest
Tim, Good fact re appointment of NRL officials. Fact is they report to no one but themselves. What irks me is they are a NFP organisation who get huge amounts of money for t.v. broadcasts but still have to look at borrowing money. Apart from grants to clubs which is understandable where does it al go ???
Emcie
Roar Guru
I'm not suggesting that there would be another super league, but it was the perfect example of the kind of dog's breakfast you can expect when you give people with money free reign to use it to solve their problems. People have been repeating their mistakes since the dawn of time
Tim Gore
Expert
Eden, Good points you make. It would be high risk. The wage explosion - as seen by the Taulmololo and Cherry-Evans contracts - is happening.
Lion tamer
Guest
No salary cap Welcome to the 8 team nrl competition. That’s all that will be left unfortunately.
Tim Gore
Expert
I like the cut of Viranga's jib. I haven't been so impressed since a young lickspittle called Waylon Smithers came into my office... Youre alright Viranga!
Tim Gore
Expert
It's still Rupert! You think he's going to do it again? For pay TV? In this market? How about Optus? They gonna go again? Which companies won't have living memory of how it went down and be chastened by it? It might happen again one day. But not now.
matth
Guest
Six teams too many? Super...League.
matth
Guest
So we want the clubs that allow the most gambling to be successful, ok then.
Boz
Guest
So far you haven't listed a single reason as to why the Salary Cap should stay, rather you've served up some vague waffle.
Emcie
Roar Guru
Ah, the old adage "History never repeats"
John
Guest
It provides a pathway for clubs that want to do it to seek out people who can bring in backers, right now there is no pathway for these clubs into NRL, so potential backers would be looking elsewhere if they didn't like the current NRL teams.
Tim Gore
Expert
NOIP, please explain what you mean by that? How do you suggest the NRL should run junior development? My argument is that clubs handle their own development and the NRL give cap concessions for developed players. The NRL has steadfastly not done that, despite the frequent calls, so scrap the cap.