New TV deal brings salary cap up to $7m?

[Anonymous person]

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6052850747

Rugby league hits the jackpot

Exclusive by Phil Rothfield

THE exodus of stars from the NRL will become history under a new television rights deal that will lift the salary cap to $7 million for the 2013 season and provide minimum $100,000 pay-rises to senior players.

At least 80 new "jobs" will be created for stars who have been lost to the English Super League and rival codes in recent seasons under the plan which will also double the NRL's annual grant to the clubs from $3.65 million to $7.5 million. The bonanza will ensure league never loses players of the calibre of our list opposite again.

The money from the soon-to-be-negotiated TV deal, worth an estimated $1 billion over five years, will allow clubs to increase their current 25-man NRL rosters to 30 to address the serious issue of player burnout in a season crammed with 26 rounds, finals, Origin, Tests and City Country.

The Daily Telegraph's analysis is a result of an investigation involving discussions with NRL management, club chief executives, coaches and player managers.

For the first time in the game's history, the grant to the clubs will be higher than the salary cap and should ensure the long-term survival of all 16 clubs. Likely expansion into Perth, Central Coast or Brisbane would not impact on the handouts to the clubs because of extra television revenue that would be generated from an additional game every weekend.

Even with the huge club grants and the player payment windfall, the NRL would have enough money left over to build a war chest of up to $20 million a year for the game's future development.

This would at least put the game in a position to hold their ground in heartland areas and fight AFL's push into the Gold Coast and western Sydney.

Even with the $20 million put away for a future fighting fund, it would still leave the NRL with $60 million a year for operating costs - a substantial improvement on its current budget.

Further costs will be saved from a streamlined organisation that removes duplication of administration under the current NRL, ARL, NSWRL, QRL and CRL arrangements.

The bold new plans to future-proof rugby league for the next generation will debated and dissected in finer detail once the new independent commission is up and running - hopefully by this year's finals series. Players agents across the game are now instructing or advising their stars to hold back on signing long-term deals because of the expected windfall that will come with the 2013 salary cap.

Not all the cash from the new television agreement will go to the superstar players like Greg Inglis, Johnathan Thurston, Billy Slater and co.

But efforts will be made to entice recent code-switchers back to the fold.

The players' own union is pushing for - and is expected to achieve - an increase from the current minimum wage of $55,000 to $70,000. Having to pay salaries for five extra players in bumped 30-man squads will also soak up some of the difference from the current $4.3 million cap.

"First of all we've got to do the television deal," said NRL spokesman John Brady, "after that there will some robust debate involving many parties to ensure players, clubs and fans get the best outcome."

Even financially struggling clubs like Penrith, Cronulla and the Titans would be capable of surviving and matching it with the premiership heavyweights under the new grants and salary cap.

thoughts?

$7mil is a huge jump from the current salary cap, and having an extra 5 contracted players has got to be good. also interesting is the fact that the NRL grants to each club would be MORE than the entire salary cap.

 

[jarro65]

All sounds good to me 8-)

Let's just hope they can now sort out the scheduling of matches :roll:

 

[Bucking Beads]

If the cap is going up that much I can see Union folding...

 

[Charmamba]

If the cap is going up that much I can see Union folding...

And if they do it's a good chance for League to really expand bringing over Union players to form more clubs and possibly a second teir.

 

[Black Philip]

Is there a Salary cap in Union? If so how much is it?

 

[Coxy]

Is there a Salary cap in Union? If so how much is it?

Not yet, but they're looking at establishing one for the Super 15, at least the Australian clubs, because they're all going broke.

But I imagine the ARU would top up the Wallabies players considerably. So I doubt we'd see a star exodus from Union, but fringe players who can't quite crack the Wallabies might be up for grabs.

 

[Black Philip]

Well it would be nice for once to see league poaching from Union. It would be funny to hear my union supporting mates have a cry about it too. icon_thumbs_u

 

[Nashy]

Will it be enough to clone Darren?

 

[pennywisealfie]

love it, but id love to see us get rid of the cap tbh

 

[Kimlo]

I'm actually expecting the cap to go up to possibly 8 or 9 million with a club grant to match at the least or likely be half a million or so above the cap to put all clubs on a level playing field.

If the new TV deal is $1 billion(or hopefully more like the AFL deal) then a 8 to 9 mil cap is feasible as even a 1bn deal would be more than double what the game gets now.

If I remember correctly the game gets about 80m a year from tv rights with a 1bn deal that would jump to 200m a year perhaps more. This is also not factoring it savings in the millions from the formation of the independent commission.

The next TV deal is CRITICAL, if the NRL gets this right the game is going to go to a new level and no longer will players go overseas and it will be the NRL getting players from union and superleague consistently, not the other way around :)

 

[Coxy]

More important stuff to spend the money on than elite players. $7 million is plenty

 

[Kimlo]

More important stuff to spend the money on than elite players. $7 million is plenty

As long as it means other competitions can't outbid us at will then I'm happy with 7 mill.

 

[Flutterby]

OK, this sounds to me like what the NRL is flogging the rights around for. Whilst it will be absolutely fantastic if this comes to fruition, there is no indication that any network/s intends to pay it at this stage, so I'll hold off on my excitement for now.

 

[Coxy]

More important stuff to spend the money on than elite players. $7 million is plenty

As long as it means other competitions can't outbid us at will then I'm happy with 7 mill.

No way we can prevent all poaching. Simply not possible. And it's not even a big deal.

 

[Kimlo]

More important stuff to spend the money on than elite players. $7 million is plenty

As long as it means other competitions can't outbid us at will then I'm happy with 7 mill.

No way we can prevent all poaching. Simply not possible. And it's not even a big deal.

Well at least have a much better situation then what it is now. Right now if a player is after the money pretty much every other code pays more, at a 7m cap that won't be the case so much anymore. Even if they can pay more it wont be such a huge difference, we could have offered Hunt a million a year in a 7 mill cap(including sponsor ship and all that) so he might have stayed but as it is the best we could do was 400-500k.

 

[Flutterby]

If we had offered Hunt $1 million a season I would have thought we were mental cases. IMO he isn't and never was worth that in any code.

 

[dukey]

I doubt that Hunt would have stayed for any money. He's never been a rugby league player; more an athlete playing rugby league. It was absolutely about the money, but being the first player to play both major codes would have had it's allure to him.

 

[Kimlo]

If we had offered Hunt $1 million a season I would have thought we were mental cases. IMO he isn't and never was worth that in any code.

I don't think he's worth 1m a year either, but someone like Smith, Cronk, Thurston, etc Would be worth $1m a year in a $7m salary cap IMO and with a big cap we are much more likely to keep them.